
f 



JAPAN 

REAL AND IMAGINARY 




THE LINES OF THE TORII AT MIYAJIMA HAVE THE BEAUTY OF THE WINGS 

OF AN ALBATROSS 



JAPAN 

REAL AND IMAGINARY 



SYDNEY GREENBIE 



With Many Illustrations 
from Photographs 




xr 



HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 



%^^^ 



n^ 



©'1A572370 

Japan: Real and Imaginary 



Copyright 1920. by Harper & Brothers 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published June, 1920 

E-u 



/u© 



To 

MARJORIE LATTA BARSTOW 



9 -7^' 



/ct3 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface - xv 

Part One 
IMPRESSIONISTIC 

CHAP. 

I. The Inland Sea 3 

II. A Transient in Kobe 11 

III. I Become a Boarder 32 

IV SakeJand Song 55 

V. I Become a Householder 73 

Part Two 
THE COMMUNAL PHASE 

VI. Men, Women, and Children 97 

VII. Recreation ." ... 114 

VIII. Craftsmanship 128 

IX. The Heart of Japan ~~. . 144 

X. Shintoism, or the Community of Souls .... 157 

Part Three 
THE SPOKES OF MODERN JAPAN 

XI. The Open Hand 179 

XII. The Thumb 192 

XIII. Commercial Japan — Osaka 208 

XIV. Mythological Japan — Nara 227 

XV. A Monk for a Night 243 

XVI. Classical Japan — Kyoto 256 

XVII. Gion Matsuri Pageant 281 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XVIII. Medieval Japan— Tokyo 286 

XIX. A Ring Round the Sun 295 

XX. Fuji the Attainable 302 



Part Four 
CRITICAL 

XXI. Eta — the Submerged 315 

XXII. Where Slums Are Slums 329 

XXIII. Five Hours in Prison 337 

XXIV. Conflicting Social Forces — I 351 

Labor Rises 

XXV. Conflicting Social Forces — II 365 

Bureaucracy Acts 

XXVI. Education by Rescript 379 

XXVII. Suppression 402 

Press Censorship 

XXVIII. Expression 409 

Drama and Art 

XXIX. Concerning Japanese Personality 422 

XXX. Historical and Fatidicaj. 440 

Index 453 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



THE LINES OF THE TORII AT MIYAJIMA HAVE THE BEAUTY OF 

THE WINGS OF AN ALBATROSS Frontispieci 

LIKE A FLOCK OF LOWERING SWANS, THE SAILING-VESSELS 

PRESS ON INTO THE NIGHT Facing p. lO 

WHILE THE ROOTED PINES AFFECT AN ATTITUDE OF MOCKING ' * ID 

KOBE HARBOR THICK WITH SAILLESS MASTS, SWAYING WITH 

THE SWELLS " II 

IT WAS NOT Kobe's finished front that gave it an ap- 
pearance OF success, but its unfinished state . " II 

TWO high WALLS, TWO DEEP OPEN gutters — A KOBE STREET " I4 

INTERNED GARDENS AND LIBERATED TELEGRAPH POLES AND 

BLACK GARBAGE BOXES " I4 

NEGLECT IS FOLLOWING IN THE WAKE OF THE JAPANESE INVA- 
SION OF Kobe's former foreign settlement ... *' 15 

PERCHED upon THE HILLSIDE AGAINST A BACKGROUND, 

SOBEk AND SOOTHING " 30 

IN THAT ROOM I COULD FORGET THE TENNO'S PALACE ... " 30 
AT LEAST THERE WAS SOMETHING PICTURESQUE IN THE ARMOR 

OF THE SAMURAI " 3I 

MEEK AND HUMBLE WHEN SERVING ME " 3I 

WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE SAW IN HER MIRROR '* 3 1 

JAPANESE WEAR FOUR-INCH CLOGS IN WET WEATHER, AND 

THEY NEED THEM " 50 

THE SAWYER STILL HOLDS HIS OWN AGAINST PROGRESS . " 50 
WE HEARD HER CRYING. SHE CONFESSED SHE WAS LONESOME " 5 1 
MINATOGAWA, KOBE's THEATER STREET, LEADS STRAIGHT TO 
THE SHIPYARDS, AND THE THRONGS OF PLEASURE- 
SEEKERS BEAR IN THEIR FACES THE LINES OF TOIL . . " 58 
THE FACT THAT WATER RUNS DOWNHILL SEEMS NOT YET TO 

HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED " 59 

THOUGH THE SHEAVES OF WHEAT ARE PLENTY, THIS WOMAN 

WOULD MAKE ONE THINK A FAMINE HAD HIT THE LAND ' ' 59 
GEISHA ARE INDISPENSABLE TO A MAN'S ENJOYMENT OF 

CHERRY-BLOSSOMS " 62 

NOWHERE WAS A BELATED ARMISTICE CELEBRATED LIKE THIS ' ' 62 



I 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

BEERU, STEAMING RICE, AND MAID AS HOPEFUL AS THE PLUM- 
BLOSSOM Facing p. 63 

NOT THE OUTER SHAPE, BUT THE POSSIBILITIES, MAKE THESE 

TEA-HOUSES " 63 

THREE ROOMS AND A KITCHEN WITH A FENCE ALL THE WAY 

ROUND " 78 

NOTHING ESCAPES EVICTION ON THE HONORABLE CLEANING- 
DAY " 78 

FOR EVERY WRINKLE A CHILD — BUT SHE IS LEARNING ... " 79 

THE MICROSCOPE WOULD REVEAL THOUSANDS LIKE HER 

HERE ** 79 

HOW STRIKINGLY SIMILAR THEIR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS . . " 94 

THE WHITE-CLOTHED POLICEMAN EARNS LITTLE MONEY BUT 

LOTS OF RESPECT " 94 

BORN IN JAPAN '* 95 

DISSATISFIED BUT CURIOUS! SO WAS I " 95 

THE CHILD KNOWETH ITS FATHER FROM ITS MOTHER . . " 95 

SHOUT "boy" and THIS APPEARS " HO 

BUT THIS WILL SOON ORDER THE BOYS " HO 

CURIOSITY NEVER AFFECTS US LIKE THIS — BUT A SHIP's 

COME IN " HO 

THE TENDERNESS OF JAPANESE CHILDREN IS PATHETIC AND 

THEIR NATURES ARE LOVABLE " III 

NO NOTION OF WHAT's HAPPENING, BUT OBLIGING JUST THE 

SAME " III 

A CARP FOR EACH BOY " II4 

NO "WUXTRA," BUT A CLUSTER OF JINGLING BELLS ... " II4 

FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS " II4 

THE UMPIRE WITH THE SWORD AND THE STENTOR WITH THE 

SKIRT ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT " II5 

BUT THE UMPIRE DOESN'T TAKE HIMSELF AS SERIOUSLY AS 

THE WINNER " II5 

EVEN IF HATS ARE REVERSED — NOT SO THE SLIGHTEST RULE 

OF ARCHERY " 122 

THESE WRESTLERS ARE MONSTROSITIES IN THIS WORLD OF 

LITTLE PEOPLE " 123 

SIGNS AND UMBRELLAS ARE FOREIGN, BUT CO-OPERATION IS 

NOT " 126 

THIS FISH-MARKET WAS ALIVE AT 4 A.M " 126 

WOMEN PILE-DRIVERS EACH WITH A ROPE-END AND A PA- 
THETIC CHANT " 127 

THE LITTLE WHEAT USED CAN BE THRESHED BY THE OLD- 
FASHIONED FLAIL " 127 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



XI 



POOR IN DETAIL, EN MASSE THE TEMPLE MARRIES SILENCE 

WITH MAJESTY Fadng p. I42 

AND WHEN THE RAM OVER THE STEPS STRIKES THE BELL 

WITHIN, THE EARTH TREMBLES " I42 

IF YOU WANT ANYTHING, DON'T VOTE FOR IT, ASK THE ME- 
CHANICAL FORTUNE-TELLER " 143 

don't DEPOSIT YOUR BALLOT IN A BOX — TIE IT TO A RAIL . " I43 

THE TORII MAKES THE WILDERNESS HUMAN AND THE MONOT- 
ONOUS CITY LOVELY " I46 

I REMEMBER HOW ALLURING IT ALL WAS AT THE TIME . . " I46 

A FESTIVAL, NO MATTER HOW ORDINARY, MUST HAVE ITS 

PARADE " 147 

AND A SHINTO PRIEST, NO MATTER HOW LOWLY, MUST HAVE 

HIS PRESTIGE " 147 

RED-LACQUERED WAGONS, EVERGREENS, STRANGE BANNERS, 

LIVING DOVES — A FUNERAL ** 1 54 

IT IS NO LONELY ROAD THE JAPANESE SOUL HAS TO TRAVERSE 

ON THE WAY ** I54 

LARGE WREATHS OF FLOWERS FROM THE MOURNERS . . " 1 55 

THE WHITE SHROUDS OF THE LIVING SEEMED AN EMBLEM OF 

LIFE IN DEATH " 155 

ON NEW year's CARPENTERS DANCE OUT THEIR GRATITUDE 

for past wages and present gifts " 1 74 

all the symbolical adjectives are tied up in these new 

year decorations '* i74 

weird masks contribute to the jollity of kyoto's new " _ 

year's " 175 

street-stands selling paraphernalia for household 

SHRINES " 175 

THE BANKS ARE BLACK, QUAGMIRE-LIKE: THE SQUALOR MORE 

REAL THAN APPARENT " I90 

BY NINE A.M. THEATER STREET WAS AGOG WITH LIFE ... " I90 

FROM ROOF TO ROOF SHOPKEEPERS HAD ALREADY DRAWN 

WHITE CLOTH STRIPS TO FILTER THE sun's RAYS ... " I9I 
AT NARA HUNDREDS OF DEER ROAM ABOUT — ARCH MENDI- 
CANTS OF THIS EASY-GOING WORLD " 222 

YET she'd DEFEND THESE LITTLE EXPLOITERS WITH HER LIFE * ' 222 
THE OLDEST WOODEN STRUCTURE IN THE WORLD — HORIUJI 

PAGODA, NEAR NARA '* 223 

JAPAN SEEMS ONE LONG VILLAGE STREET FROM WHICH THERE 

IS NO ESCAPE ** 223 

SAID TO HAVE NOBLE BLOOD IN HIM, BUT JUST AS LIKELY 

AINO ** 238 



Xll 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



DRONING LAZILY BENEATH THEIR DOMES OF STRAW THEY 

STRAY THROUGH THE STREETS IN SINGLE FILE BEGGING 

FOR RICE Facing p. 

HIDEYOSHI'S TOMB LOOKS DOWN THROUGH THIS TORII UPON 

A CITY HE ROSE TO RULE 

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND KOREAN EARS AND NOSES 

NOURISH THESE ALIEN FLOWERS 

LAKE BIWA LIES STRETCHING NORTHWARD, COMPLETELY 

SURROUNDED BY MOUNTAINS 

MINAMIZA, THE LARGEST THEATER IN KYOTO, UPON THE EAST 

BANK OF THE KAMOGAWA 

IN SUMMER THE GODS ARE CHEATED OF THEIR ALLOTMENT OF 

SUFFERING MORTALITY 

THE LIFE OF THE NOMAD PRIEST IS NOT MERE HISTORICAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS, BUT STERN REALITY 

THE PAST AND PRESENT ARE INCOMPATIBLE: NOW, WHEN 

THESE PLAGUE-EXPULSION CHARIOTS PASS, THE TROLLEY 

WIRES MUST BE CUT 

FORTY MEN PULL THESE MASSIVE CARTS BY TWO-INCH ROPES 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FEET LONG 

ESCORTS, PULLERS, DRIVERS, CHANTING AND RINGING HARSH 

BELLS, DANCE FANTASTIC FAN-DANCES 

EVEN THE HORSE LOOKS CONTEMPLATIVE BEFORE THE VISION 

OF FUJI 

READY FOR THE ASCENT OF FUJI 

THE SLOPE IS STEEP, BUT SHE MUST GET THERE ERE SHE DIES 
SEVENTEEN THOUSAND PILGRIMS MADE THE SUMMIT OF FUJI 

THAT SUMMER 

PUNTS, RAFTS, AND LIGHTERS CROWD THE RIVER AT NAGOYA 
THE SAMISEN HAS NO MUSIC IN IT BUT REQUIRES A LONG FACE 
AFFECTED SORROW FORGOTTEN FOR THE MOMENT .... 
WASHED GARMENTS HUNG ON BAMBOO POLES FROM HOUSE TO 

HOUSE AND SMELLED OFFENSIVELY 

WHEN THE LEAVES HAVE FALLEN DAIKON (RADISH) ARE 

HUNG OUT TO DRY 

THERE STILL IS NO SEWERAGE SYSTEM IN ALL JAPAN . . 
WITH ALL ITS MODERNISM, JAPAN STILL HAS TIME FOR SUCH 

SLOW METHODS 

AND THERE ARE MEN ENOUGH TO GIVE THEIR LIVES TO SUCH 

TASKS 

THE LIFE OF THE WOMAN TOILER IN JAPAN IS RUINOUS. 

THESE WOMEN ARE PICKING PEPPERS WHICH KEEP THE 

NEIGHBORHOOD SNEEZING 



ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 

WHERE THE PNEUMATIC HAMMERS WERE THUNDERING AWAY 

AT THE STEEL HULL OF THE SUPERDREADNOUGHT . . Pacing p. 366 

WHILE THIS PUMP PUMPS THE FIRE BURNS " 367 

BUT THIS INSTRUMENT MIGHT SCARE IT TO DEATH ... ** 367 

THIS WAS LEFT OF PART OF YOKOHAMA AFTER THE FIRE . ** 367 

THE SOROBAN (COUNTING-MACHINE) RACE PREPARING THESE 

COMMERCIAL STUDENTS FOR THE RACE TO COME . . ** 382 

SEND-OFF TO YOUNG CONSCRIPTS. THOSE WHO DON'T GET 
THE "lucky" NUMBERS ARE GIVEN CONGRATULATION 
DINNERS IN SECRET ** 383 

IN THE NO THE BLAZE OF COLOR, THE CROWDING IN OF FABRICS 
OBLITERATING THE BODY BUT CREATING FORM, IS 
WITHOUT PEER ** 398 

IN THE NO THE SENSE OF MOTION, THE WORLD OF FLIGHT IS 
BROUGHT WITHIN THE MOST UNYIELDING OF LIMITATIONS 
WITHOUT LOSING THE ESSENCE OF SWIFTNESS ... " 399 

THE GOLDEN PAVILION NEAR KYOTO IS THE SYMBOL OF TEN- 
NOISM, ONCE ECLIPSED BY THE USURPING SHOGUN, NOW 
REDEDICATED TO TENNOISM *' 43O 

CERTAINLY NO PLACE IN JAPAN IS SO RICH IN HIDDEN 
STREAMS, COVERING FORESTS AND RUGGED MOUNTAINS, 
AS IS NIKKO *' 431 

NO IMAGE IN ALL JAPAN IS MORE HUMAN AND LIFELIKE THAN 

THE GIANT BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA ** 446 

ISE — THE FOUNTAINHEAD OF SHINTOISM. EVERY TWENTY 
YEARS THESE SHACKS ARE REBUILT — AND HAVE BEEN 
FOR TWENTY-FIVE CENTURIES ** 447 



PREFACE 

Notwithstanding that there is already a bibliog- 
raphy of works on Japan as large, if not larger than this 
volume, I make no apologies for offering it to the public. 
Nations completely change their tissues every few years 
just as our bodies change their skins, and Japan to-day 
is not what it was before the fateful days of 19 14. The 
only explanation I think the public is right in demanding 
concerns the point of view from which the writer has 
approached his subject. And this I make readily. 

The slogan "Gro West" had its effects on me. I went 
west at the time the anti- Japanese sentiment stirred 
California to action. I started on ''farther" west 
when the present Emperor of Japan ascended the throne, 
but was held up in Honolulu, Hawaii, for want of 
steamship accommodation. There I caught my first 
glimpse of the life of the Japanese, his inability to mix 
with other races, and his aggressiveness. Unable to 
secure passage, I changed my course within an hour of 
the arrival of the Niagara at Honolulu, and sailed for 
Australia. I broke my journey at Fiji, where I saw 
another mixture of races — the native, the Indian, and 
the whites. I turned north again to Samoa, the home of 
R. L. S., where again this mixture obtains. Then I 
sailed on to New Zealand. There, instead of spending 
just a few weeks, I remained a year, again interesting 
myself in the linking of races, the mixture of the Maories 
with the English. I tramped New Zealand from end to 
end, and then set off for Australia, where I remained six 
months. The anti- Japanese sentiment there brought 
me face to face with the problem again. 



PREFACE 

But one thing, and one alone, lured me on — the 
Orient. Often unutterably weary of the way, I was 
ready to turn home; but I had not seen the East. So 
to the East I went, skirting the Australian coast along 
the Great Barrier Reef, anchoring over its dangerous 
shallows for two nights and sailing on over a sea it was 
a pity to disturb; Sundaying, which is no picnic, at 
Thursday Island; zigzagging through sea after sea till 
we arrived at Manila, in the Philippines. Twenty-six 
days it took us. For another two we rocked on the 
China Sea — and reached Hongkong. It was China I 
had been after, but fate said Japan, with just a squint 
at Shanghai. And Japan it was for twenty-six months. 

Thus, having seen forty thousand miles of the Pacific 
I feel that my approach to Japan justifies my present 
work. I do not claim any originality in sources. Credit 
is due to the works of Brinkley, Chamberlain, Miu*doch, 
Aston, and others whose researches have opened the shell 
of Japanese historical seclusion. But I limited myself to 
authorities. I purposely avoided descriptive writers — 
including Lafcadio Heam — so as to be free from all 
bias for or against Japan. To the pages of The Japan 
Chronicle I owe a debt which can never be repaid for 
the sane and just light they throw upon the daily life 
and thought of the Japanese. 

There is none other to whom I owe an acknowledg- 
ment — except her whose name stands by itself in dedi- 
cation — for the way of the wanderer is a lonely one. 
But to Marjorie Latta Barstow I must here give credit 
for criticism, encouragement, and for checking up the 
use of pronouns which the man who has walked by 
himself finds very hard to keep in conventional order. 

Sydney Greenbie. 

Note: I wish to thank the publishers of Harper* s Monthly, Asia, Out- 
look, World Outlook, and Dial for permission to use material published 
by them. 



Part One 
IMPRESSIONISTIC 



JAPAN 

REAL AND IMAGINARY 




THE INLAND SEA 

,T was quite dark when the Tamba Maru, en route 
from China, suddenly stopped her screws and 
anchored for the night in the Straits of Shimo- 
noseki, just outside the harbors of Moji and 
Shimonoseki. Obedient to war regulations, 
the ship could not enter after sundown, though she was 
at a home port. Half a century ago other regulations 
intending to prohibit entry were in force, but the Jap- 
anese happened to have misjudged the appellants. 
Though simple war-vessels, the medieval forts could not 
deny them. The challenge culminated in the Shimono- 
seki affair and in the opening of Japan to the world. 
Real Japan was as much of a prophecy to me that night, 
in 191 7, as I slept on the waters at its gates, as it was 
to those others in 1853. While forcing the gates of 
this empire they hadn't the slightest notion whether 
it was Beauty or Beast they sought to awaken. I have 
not as yet made the discovery myself. The next few 
years will tell. 

So there we lay at anchor, up against that pyramid of 
dark-blue shadows, sheltered behind nothing from an 
imaginary world. Not even an electric light upon 



4 JAPAN—REAL AND IMAGINARY 

which to focus one's memories! All day long they had 
vouched for the blue beyond being Japan, but my con- 
scious self would not know it. But at dawn I realized 
why I had not inwardly acknowledged it. From behind 
the land came the rising sun, and we moved behind the 
land into a harbor full of massive steamers whose rising 
smoke made me think of the magician in Aladdin's lamp. 
What sort of wonders were to reveal themselves in this 
strange land? 

Moji lay huddling to the shore at our right; Shimo- 
noseki, at our left. We were now right in the midst of 
activity, yet it did not seem Oriental. How wildly dif- 
ferent it had been at Hongkong and Shanghai, with the 
swarming masses of humanity, each alive to his own re- 
sponsibilities to himself, each trying to outdo the other 
in the shouting struggle for existence. Not so here. 
The launches that crowded about us seemed to move as 
though by command from a central office, as though on an 
efficiency parade, and the girl coal-heavers who were 
brought alongside upon a lighter laden with coal sud- 
denly formed a line like a string of soldier-ants and 
commenced a rapid series of dips and risings which 
transferred their broken cargo into the bunkers in a 
perfect stream of little baskets. 

Upon the ship itself another such process of change 
was going on. Tightly girthed and shod in close-fitting 
sock-like shoes called tabi which seemed to have been 
sewed on and kept on till usage should wear them off, 
hundreds of little men, small but well built, sprightly 
and pouncing in their movements, jumped about the 
deck in eager purstdt of cargo or baggage. One is aware 
that Httle escapes them. They seem so far-seeing and so 
detective-like. They may be silent, but they are not 
good pretenders. Such faces always put one on his 
guard. 

I cannot recall our deUvery. What Japanese Moses 



THE DIVINE PARENTS 5 

led us out of the wilderness of officialism I cannot say. 
I do not know whether we were examined by the doctor 
or not, questioned by a devotee of the English tongue, 
or required to speak and write at least one Oriental 
language. I should have failed. But that was before 
America entered the war. Until then Japan didn't 
take the war seriously. All I remember is that 
though in possession of only an Australian Com- 
monwealth Emergency Permit, good no farther than 
Hongkong, instead of my American passport, I found 
myself clipping along over the water early in the 
morning, bound first for Shimonoseki, and then for 
Moji. 

Our little launch moved about within a harbor thick 
with fishing-vessels. Their sail-less masts swayed with 
the impatience of the swells, as though eager to be tested 
before the winds. But they were lashed — and soon so 
were we — ^lashed to the shore and to Japan. 

It is not often that the day permits of greater illusive 
beauty than that which the night amasses. But that 
is the way of Japan. Such painstaking details so deli- 
cately done reveal themselves only in sunlight. The 
hills at night are not more than other hills; by dawn 
they become terraced shrines, stepping-stones to heaven. 
And more intimate contact changes them from shrines 
to life-giving and life-sustaining verities. Obviously 
Izanagi and Izanami, the divine creators of these islands, 
had a well-developed sense of placing, such as would 
interest travelers. With the Straits of Shimonoseki here 
in the western end of the archipelago leading into the 
Inland Sea and on through that and out again to Yoko- 
hama, due east, one never fails to realize that one has 
truly arrived at the place where the world opens to the 
sun. 

From hearsay one generally gleans one's prejudices. 
Because of muffled reports, I was, before knowing 



6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

It, almost chilled toward Japan. But the moment 
one sets foot on its soil preconceived aversions van- 
ish. Everything is so strange, so obvious, so deli- 
cately appeaHng. Streets? There are no streets. The 
houses are but stage - settings for moving pictures, 
too small for grown-ups and too large for dolls. The 
paper doors and windows could keep out only a make- 
believe thief, and the upper balconies would never 
separate a healthy Romeo from his Juliet. What a 
town to tarry in ! 

The quaintness of an early Japan still loiters about 
Moji. The dark-gray roof tiles, the charred outer walls, 
the crowded intimacy, the terraced hills which since 
time immemorial have been nursed and exploited in 
small holdings — these things do not change so rapidly. 
Yet they are going. Newer buildings, of concrete and 
longer promise, indicate what is coming over Moji. 
With its "cellars" full of coal deposits and itself the 
center of Asiatic and American navigation, how long 
will it be before the old Moji, living in history, will be 
forgotten of men? The hills c\irve round the bay and 
almost close it in. But the thick, low-hanging smoke 
from factory and steamer acclaims the change under 
which the port is laboring. 

Through the early morning hours under the chill low 
clouds the village shuts its eyes in sleep deceptively. 
Moji steals another wink from the vault of time. Here 
and there men huddle over their wooden fire-boxes 
{hibachi), warming their toes and fingers. A paper 
sliding-door (shoji), Hght and slender, is pushed aside, 
a face peeps out — ^and coal-dust, granite-gray Moji is 
nearly awake. 

I had taken up my tour of inspection with three pas- 
sengers — a Japanese and two Chinese. We came upon 
the main thoroughfare, a rather wide, open street with 
a track upon which at odd hours rolled a lumbering 



PARKS AND CHURCHES 7 

big trolley-car. Following it on to the right, we lost 
ourselves in one of the by-streets. Here stood an un- 
painted structure, by no means a home, yet certainly 
not a factory. It was a school. 

One would hardly have thought breakfast could pos- 
sibly have been over, but there were the youngsters, all 
in school, reading their lessons from books held at arm's 
length above the level of their eyes. Their three thou- 
sand wooden clogs or straw sandals were neatly set in 
pairs out upon the walk in the courtyard, waiting for 
as many feet to put them to flight. A gentleman in 
house slippers greeted us. Before being permitted to 
enter, however, we were asked to remove our shoes and 
put on similar slippers — ^which are neither comfortable 
nor graceful. We made the rounds. Cleanliness was 
the outstanding feature of the place, yet it was not 
without offensive odors, owing to absence of sanitation, 
and the children with catarrhs, poor things, were any- 
thing but clean and tidy. 

From the gate it looks like a single building with stone 
steps leading up through it. But these steps run against 
the hillside through another structure slightly above it 
into a third. A museum, a library, laboratories; and 
there is even one room in which the eyes and general 
health of the tots are seen to by visiting physicians. 
Yet the buildings were certainly not meant to be warm 
and comfortable. 

The way of the real wanderer is never certain and 
sometimes dull. Having no plans nor guides and 
pamphlets to direct him, he misses many things. But 
he also runs across others when least expecting them. 
Strolling through the town, watching, making mental 
notes (for it is forbidden to have a camera, sketch-book, 
or pen and paper anywhere within seven thousand 
yards of the outer circle of a fortified district in Japan), 
we came to what seemed the end of all things, but which 



8 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

was really only the beginning. Up a road to the left, 
passing one or two fine-looking residences, we came to a 
stone torii (gate) marking the entrance to the park. 
Within the park, our Japanese companion, approaching 
a simple wooden shacklike structure, took off his hat, 
bowed, and clapped his hands. A shrine. 

Then, as from "an ethereal source out of regions un- 
known," came a little stream. Narrow steps directed 
us upward; a tiny lake; reflections; tranquillity and 
peace, reality and promise. Little level plateaus for 
children to play on. All the artifices of a race given to 
rigorous economy have made this ravine a lovely re- 
treat. Just a pathway, a little bridge, a dam in the 
right place — and we have a world in miniature within a 
wonderful world. 

We returned to the town, but, being with Orientals, 
not to loiter about the streets. At the other end of 
Moji, a gorgeous temple stands at the approach to the 
hill. To the right, a path winds and zigzags its way 
upward. Tiny shrines with porcelain puppets people 
the ascent. 

"Do you believe in these little gods?" I asked one of 
the Chinese. "No," he answered, with the suggestion 
of a sneer. But the Japanese does not falter. To him 
gods are real gods. 

At last we came to a loftier shrine, and be it pagan, 
Mohammedan, Buddhist, or Christian — before that 
shrine all men must worship — not excluding the agnostic. 
The beautiful none dares deny. One may not love it 
ardently enough to climb a hill for, but once there, the 
heart utters involimtary adoration. By the path, by 
the shelter, by the fact that an old couple have found it 
worth their while to keep a hut and a larder and Japanese 
tea — by all these signs it is evident that the visitors 
are many. 

And what is this shrine? A quick-descending hill, a 



THERE ARE SHRINES AND SHRINES 9 

quickly rising promontory, an open space with a tran- 
quil sea, sailboats floating out to a clear beyond, a 
valley studded with little homes led a sober chase on 
into another valley by a broad, winding road — and 
distance as delicate as heaven. 

*'When one sits for a moment here one soon forgets 
everything else in life," said the Japanese. And all 
were silent. On shipboard the night before, he had 
been drinking heavily, to the horror of the Salvation 
Army lassie. I wonder what she would have said had 
she seen him here. A nature worshiper? That was my 
first lesson in Shintoism; and my first view of the Inland 
Sea. After an hour of silence, each nursing his own 
feelings, we descended in the opposite direction amid 
tiny but neat little homes, palaces and dirty huts, too. 
We were soon back in town again. 

The railroad station! Shuffling crowds with wooden 
clogs held firm by rope between the big and little toes, 
clattering away; a variety of costumes, capes and 
kimonos; a woman carrying a heavy suitcase slung 
across her back and balanced by a weighty package in 
front, while two empty-handed men walked at her 
sides. A thousand babies. 

Thus we have the Moji as it was in the sixth year of 
Taisho (191 7). We see it from above as a flat, crescent- 
shaped village, dark gray tiles on the roofs, somber 
throughout — reaching out into the water. We see it 
again from the ship, at sundown, partly black with coal- 
dust, partly gray with granite-dust, climbing a little 
up the hillside. About it stand the peaks; the heavy 
smoke floats over the placid bay. Opposite, lies 
Shimonoseki and the railroad insinuating its way along 
to Kobe, Yokohama, and Tokyo: behind it the way to 
Nagasaki. 

Our ship steers north by northeast, through a neck of 
land so narrow that two ships could not pass each other — 



10 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

and we are out upon the Inland Sea. The sun has set. 
Along a ridge grows a line of flat-headed pines which 
simulate a tremendous centipede. The sky-line undu- 
lates, peak after peak, and range behind range of peaks. 
For a distance they surround us completely. Ahead of 
us, straining every thread before the breeze, two hun- 
dred sailing vessels, like a flock of lowering swans, press 
on into the night. Peaks of clouds and peaks of earth 
and masts upon the sea. We slip into their midst; 
overtake them; and then escape from them. Blazing 
fires dance upon the decks, and voices reach us in 
undertones of song. Then complete darkness obliter- 
ates all. 

Next day we move upon a sea as smooth and glassy 
as though it were along the equator. At times the shore 
is so close that every tree is clear, and some almost 
within reach. Hundreds of little bays shelter idle 
craft. Islands stud the sleeping waters. Then the 
island, which has thus stolen a bit of the sea, extends 
his grasp. The panorama opens out. To the right, 
land is lost sight of. All day long we push through this 
unreality, this misty mysticism. The very land which 
makes the Inland Sea possible is as unlike land as thought 
is unlike emotion. 

And as one slowly glides along, one forgets — only to 
wake up with a start, anchored before the city of Kobe. 




LIKE A FLOCK OF LOWERING SWANS, THE SAILING-VESSELS PRESS ON INTO 

THE NIGHT 




WHILE THE ROOTED PINES AFFECT AN ATTITUDE OF MOCKING 




KOBE HARBOR THICK WITH SAILLESS MASTS, SWAYING WITH THE SWELLS 




IT WAS NOT Kobe's finished front that gave it an appearance of 

SUCCESS, BUT its UNFINISHED STATE 




II 

A TRANSIENT IN KOBE 

OBE, even more than Moji, was blanketed 
in smoke with nothing distinctive in its 
topography. Even the hills which back 
it and stretch for thirty miles were packed 
with mist. The Tamba Mam had stopped 
out in the harbor, tied to a tremendous buoy, as were 
dozens of other ocean liners. Here too a launch brought 
us along shore, though there were many wiggling sampans 
about and hundreds of sailing vessels. The preponder- 
ance was in launches and tugs. Tremendous piers jutted 
out into the bay. Our little captain steered us toward 
one of these at the left, and we stepped out upon the 
American Hatoba. 

It was not Kobe's finished front that gave it an ap- 
pearance of success, but its unfinished state. The 
three-storied structures, foreign banks and hotels and 
steamship companies' offices were small compared with 
the erections beside them. These latter were just 
slender tree-trunks tied together with straw rope and 
curtained with straw matting to inclose the building 
under construction. This sheltering struck me as illus- 
trative of the nation's past and its present way of 
thinking and doing things more or less under cover. 
Not deceitful, but just a little bit nervous about being 
seen. Three hundred years of seclusion, I thought. 

The first impressions of a man with white skin let 
loose in a world of human beings of sallow complexion, 
with seventy-five cents in his pocket and no letter of 



12 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

credit nor a rich father to cable to, are not very cheerful. 
I did not feel like the mouse when it sees two green eyes 
at its hole; I felt like a hungry cat looking into a black 
hole with no mouse to see. Two suitcases full of clothes, 
from a light jacket used in the tropics to a complete 
full-dress outfit, with other minor possessions, such as 
books and papers, would, had I known, have made quite 
an impression had I donned them and strutted about 
the streets. A brown felt hat would not have been an 
unusual climax to a dress-suit in Oriental eyes. But 
how was I to know? So I kept to a dark suit with tan 
shoes and brown hat, passing for respectability itself, 
in Japan, as I had done elsewhere. Now, to be broke, 
cracked clean through and all finance leaked out, yet 
well-dressed, would have been nothing to romance about 
in America. There it's common enough. Nor would 
the picture be remarkable — if I had been in threadbare 
clothes and broke, in a strange land. But to be broke 
in Japan, unhonored and unknown, yet with good clothes 
not only on one's back but all over one's body — that is 
something to which, as far as I know, I am the only one 
who can confess. 

And there lay the whole of the Japanese Empire at my 
feet, to be taken and enjoyed. My situation compelled 
me, however, to enter without blare of trumpet. I 
learned from a foreigner on Division Street, which leads 
into the city from the pier, that there was a small 
Japanese hotel into which a respectable white man 
might go without losing caste. Every hotel or boarding- 
house run for and by foreigners was crowded. Accom- 
modation was not to be found at any price — not even 
at seventy-five cents. Not having come to Japan with 
the expectation of living in marble halls, I was not 
disappointed at finding myself before a black-stained 
house with bulging iron window-bars, and grated, glass 
sUding doors. 



A BI-NATIONAL 13 

The proprietor looked dubious. Would I put up 
with Japanese conditions? "My place so dirty," he 
assured me. Yet I had to remove my shoes before I 
could ascend the steep stairs to the narrow hall above. 
The floors were as immaculate and as polished as a 
table. The room to which I was led was at the extreme 
end of the building. It was small, its walls were plas- 
tered, its window was narrow. It was foreign in every 
detail but the straw mats upon the floor. A cushion to 
sit upon and a brazier for company — and Buddhist 
was never placed in a more favorable situation for re- 
flection. I was left alone. My entreaties to be per- 
mitted to eat with the rest were, if understood, deftly 
evaded. And that was my first lesson in how to be 
happy though lonely in a Japanese inn. 

It was early spring, and that, in Japan, is synonymous 
with rain. So I remained in that room as long as I 
could stand it, and then went out for a stroll. When I 
returned, every one seemed delighted with the foreign 
guest. Even the male attendants were affable. No 
sooner had I reached my room than a little maid came 
to light the gas-jet (an unusual way of lighting in new 
Japan) and to bring a tray of tea things and some tea. 
Upon the lacquer tray were five little cups, as many 
copper autumn-leaf saucers, a stippled-iron pot of hot 
water, a small china teapot, and a water cooler — the 
standard Japanese tea set. I thought that at last I was 
to have company, but I learned otherwise. The process 
of feeding me was provokingly ceremonious. One 
wants to eat like a healthy animal, not like a suspicious 
Czar. It was tantalizing to taste a few cakes — and then 
to sit and wait. And the ceremonial respect of the two 
maids, their kneeling and their shyness were made 
tolerable by their dipping into their sleeves for laughter 
from which they could not restrain themselves. 

The arrangements had been that I was to eat Japanese 



14 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

food. It was brought to me in a series of trays and jour- 
neys and pressed upon me with such good grace that I 
lost all track of its variety. Rice was kept steaming 
hot in a round wooden container. I was well pleased 
with the bill of fare, though I winced at more than one 
of the courses. 

As soon as I had finished, the two maids withdrew 
and for some little time I was again alone, left to nurse 
my future prospects. The door was gently pushed 
aside and the little maid ushered in a tall, robust, 
westernized individual. 

"Excuse me, may I come in?" he said most graciously. 

**0f course, do," I said, with not a little feeling. And 
without further ado he doubled his sturdy legs under 
him and squatted down before me. The little maid 
sat down a little farther to the rear, her face all wonder 
at the sounds she heard. 

"You are American," he said, proud of being able to 
distinguish one foreigner from another. "I lived nine 
years in America. I came back to visit my father." 
He made no mention of mother, I noticed. Then I 
learned that he was from Yamaguchi, a place then as 
vague in my understanding as would be a sound in high 
treble meant to be the name of a village on Mars. But 
still, it added something to my Nipponese impressions. 
He was waiting impatiently for his steamer to sail and 
take him back to America. From him I made the 
discovery that I had fallen into a hotel crowded with 
emigrants bound for the States, or, like himself, re- 
turning. So there I was, a vagabonding American 
thrown right into the midst of bi-national life in Japan, 
in a hotel essentially Japanese, but having a "foreign" 
room and occupied by migratory human beings like 
myself. That was my first point of contact with 
Japan. 

I slept through that night without much comfort. 




TWO HIGH WALLS. TWO DEEP OPEN GUTTERS — A KOBE STREET 







^ \^BI^^Q 


^^K>- -V'^ 


= 


r tJ 


i^9i 


^^Qa| 




..ij 


^^■HHh 


BB 







INTERNED GARDENS AND LIBERATED TELEGRAPH POLES AND BLACK GARBAGE 

BOXES 



BED AND BREAD iS 

The heavy, ponderous quilts (two of them) were more 
than I could endure. They were conquerors of cold, to 
be sure, but lacked snugness, and being without sheets 
made me rather loath to treat them too intimately. 

I breakfasted on rice and raw eggs, and a kind of solu- 
tion called coffee. Both sleeping and feeding were relished 
more as experience than as delight, however. Because 
I hadn't despatched all that had been placed at my dis- 
posal, the proprietor took it for granted that I didn't 
enjoy Japanese food. Consequently, my evening meal 
was ultra-foreign and afforded me my first experience in 
Japanese modernism. It is said that when the great 
westernization wave swept over the country, bread 
became one of the fads. But the fashion subsided as 
quickly as it appeared. The explanation is not difficult 
to fathom, for the dispensation which the Japanese call 
pan must have been too strong for even a Japanese 
stomach and as heavy as on the day it was kneaded. 
So here, when the little girls began to serve me with 
"foreign" food on dirty dishes, cold steak and greasy 
onions, coffee in a dirty tin teapot, I balked. 

I labored all that evening trying to make the whole 
establishment, including two clerks, two maids, half-a- 
dozen guests led by my worthy stalwart Americanized 
Japanese, understand that, though I did want European 
(or rather American) food when it was genuine, in this 
case I preferred their own. Finally they understood, 
but in their effort to please and to preserve my interest 
they had become not a little stiff. I could not tell 
what had happened or how I had scattered these timid 
creatures, and endeavored to show myself eager to enter 
their ways and eliminate strangeness. But they would 
beat a hasty retreat immediately after serving me, and 
I saw that real sociability is not to be found at any 
public inns of Japan. Every group has its own room, 
and, unless you hire geisha, you must spend your time 



i6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

in solitary confinement — for there is no public gathering 
place in a Japanese hotel. 

So there was left for me but one solution — to wander 
the streets. From the very first night I was driven out 
upon the streets for recreation. Fortune had been with 
me. I learned from a foreign resident that a foreign 
firm required assistance and made my application. 
That was Saturday afternoon. I was to make my ap- 
pearance on the job on Monday. Otherwise, I should 
not hsLYJ^ known that it was Sunday. There wasn't the 
least letup in activity. Wandering along the unpaved 
streets, I met one of the men from the Eastern, the 
steamer on which I had come up from Australia, and 
together we made our way about Kobe. There was 
nothing definite to lead one anywhere, so that all one 
could do was to wander. No matter which way we 
went, we seemed always to come out in the same place 
from which we started. Upon a corner st^sod a dirty, 
scraggly little shrine; there, off at the end of the street, 
stood a greater shrine. It was grassless, gravelly, and 
disorderly. The buildings were unpainted and meaning- 
less. We stopped before one little shed in which stood 
a white-surpliced priest, his flowing robes filled with the 
wind, his feet set in black, shiny, lacquered, wooden 
shoes, his head covered by a black, shiny, lacquered, 
paper cap like a cross between an ''overseas" cap and a 
silk-hat. By using the words * ' Buddhist ' ' and ' ' Shinto ' ' 
in a belabored fashion, I succeeded in learning a little 
bit less than I could have guessed without labor. 

But what I learned at the home of a foreigner that day 
was not more illuminating. I resented what seemed to 
me the prejudices of the foreign resident against the 
Japanese. Race prejudice, I felt, was never justifiable. 
I determined to have no more to do with foreigners 
residing in Japan than I could possibly help. I did not 
want to fall under the influence of Occidental thought. 



JAPANESE EMIGRANTS 17 

Whatever impressions I was to gain were to be my 
own. 



And so, as ordinary as it seems to me now, I remember 
how alluring it all was at the time. I remember that 
my companion, knowing my circumstances and my pil- 
grimage, in sympathy with my attitude to life, stood off 
and looked at me somewhat inquiringly as, when we 
passed a gateway to a new native residence, I went up 
to it and spoke eulogistically of its architectural fineness, 
even of the absence of paint as being praiseworthy. I 
remember how we wandered down into the foreign settle- 
ment, so called, with its sidewalks and square buildings, 
expressing my regret at what was coming over Japan. 
Commercialism! Japan is becoming commercialized, I 
expounded. The rows and rows of three-story buildings, 
the godowns filled with goods, the wide avenues! And 
yet, when I stood upon the Hatoba again and waved 
him farewell as he moved off in the launch back to his 
ship, back to his own country down below the line, back 
to Australia which had been foreign to me and distaste- 
ful, he called to me, ''Won't you change your mind and 
come away with me?" And I remember that the 
friendly invitation moved me, for though I determined 
to remain, still his offer to take me back among white 
people left an enduring impression on my mind — a 
feeling of world fellowship. — - 

Returning, alone, to the shopping street, I felt exceed- 
ingly lonely. In the midst of the confusion, the side- 
walk-less streets, the luxurious wares, the nagging 
'rikisha men who wanted to take me everywhere for a 
little bit more than nothing — what resuscitated remnants 
of the old Japan I had heard of on the winds of the world ! 
I was somewhat dazed, yet struggled faithfully to live 
up to the adoration I had been assured the country 
inspires. And I remember returning to my little hotel 
that night with a strange feeling of inadequacy, like a 



i8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

man disappointed in heaven. Yet I was not unfavorably 
impressed. Only there was something lacking — no real 
thrill. 

I didn't like the foreign room in which I had been 
stalled. Through the gracious emigrant I made my 
request for accommodation more in Japanese style and 
soon found myself in just the atmosphere I was after. 
It was exactly ten feet square and eight feet high, a gray, 
painted mud wall on one side to show that it was real and 
the other three walls of paper. The thin strips of wood 
crossing each other and pasted over with white paper 
fitted into a frame which is called a door or a window, as 
you will. Then beneath were the four and a half 
tatami — soft, straw mats always six feet by three, by 
two inches thick. There is an elegance and luxurious- 
ness in a Japanese room which far transcends our modem 
flat profusions. The sense of leisure pervading, the lack 
of obvious drudgery in the way of cleaning, are far more 
delightful than all our household finery. The absence 
of tawdry trinkets and bric-a-brac makes the room more 
restful than one accustomed to western homes imagines 
possible. 

We are prone to sneer at the Japanese custom of living, 
eating, and sleeping in the same room. But their futon 
(quilts) are neatly stored in closets and, in whatever 
way the room is used, for that time it bears itself accord- 
ing to its usage. We in America are just coming to that 
kind of economy in space. Wall beds and convertible 
couches, modem kitchenettes — what are they but similar 
innovations? 

Though my first room was not what one could call 
''European," still it had remained as a barrier between 
me and the little sallow folk — servants and emigrant 
guests. I had not known how little it takes to shunt off 
a Japanese. But I was determined to overcome their 
shyness. This I found more possible when I moved 



HUDDLING 19 

into the Japanese room. In it I was not only nearer 
physically, but socially. 

Though it was a public hotel, I sometimes thought 
only relatives patronized it, so free and easy were they 
with one another. One night the tall gentleman pushed 
aside my paper doors without knocking — as is the 
Japanese way — and asked me to come across the hall. 
The girls wanted to have a close survey of their future 
' ' countryman. ' * Four of them were girls ; one a married 
woman; and a man and a boy — all the occupants of 
one small room. We spent the best part of an hour 
exchanging ** language" lessons. We began: "This is a 
mat," and I heard: ''Korewatatamidesu.'' It was only 
my extreme patience which succeeded in getting them 
to say it slowly enough to make it sound: ''Kore wa 
tatami desu. ' ' But the major part of the * ' conversation ' * 
was in fits of giggling to which the girls abandoned 
themselves. They would stuff their mouths with the 
long square sleeves, or roll off upon the mats in merry 
bashfulness. Though at times familiar, they were never 
vulgar. The married woman was more reserved than 
the girls, but consequently more self-conscious. With- 
out apology she moved into a comer of the room, took 
out her materials from the tiny little dresser with its 
slanting mirror, and began rouging and powdering her 
face before it — and all of us. 

They seemed to have no particular need of privacy. 
One evening I came in rather late and peeped into 
their room through the crevices left by the ill adjust- 
ment of the paper doors against each other. The 
electric light was on, and there they lay upon the mats, 
eight quilted sleepers on eight straw mats — each mat 
never being more than three feet wide, or the size of a 
single bed. The distribution was without regard to 
sex — though no two slept beneath the same quilts. But 
they slept quietly, for which much praise be given. 



20 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Bound for a land where they would be isolated from 
their own people, this common experience seemed to 
bring them close together. The more primitive or ele- 
mental people are the less can they endure separation. 
Civilization is the essence of isolation. It spells ex- 
pansion, exclusion, and cold aloneness. There was I 
occupying a room larger than that in which eight of them 
found ample comfort. What delightful associations this 
closeness must have given them! What warmth, what 
contact of man with man, until the mass finds no further 
use for ''coming together," and they emerge as one. 

This huddling, however, is not typical of emigrants 
alone. Nothing affords a better example of Oriental 
huddling than the public bath. That is the national 
rendezvous for prince and pauper. The tub is a wooden 
box, usually square and about four feet deep, with a 
ledge to sit upon inside and out. The Japanese, whether 
in the bath, at prayer, or in his final "tub" at burial, 
is always doubled up with his knees at his chin. When 
you slip down into the water, you are up to your neck 
in it. I am sure that suddenly to immerse a skinned 
pig in one of these baths would be enough to make him 
wiggle and squeal again. To go from one extreme to 
another, the towel is about the size and texture of those 
used on a four weeks old baby. When they called 
me to my bath the first time, I was amazed to find a 
coating of dust upon the surface and felt suspicious 
about the cleanliness of the water. I skimmed the top 
and got in, pretending not to have noticed. I soon 
discovered that the gathering was not there without 
reason. There had been others before me. I asked 
that thereafter I be allowed to take my bath first, and 
received a promise to that effect. But I found that in 
almost every case I had to watch carefully, for though 
the servants would not refuse, they would try to deceive 
me. At the bottom of it all was the fact that the 



THE MORNING WASH 21 

Japanese guests, willing as they were to use the same 
water with a dozen other native strangers, disliked the 
idea of using it after me — a foreigner. To do them 
justice, their use of the same water is not an unclean 
practice, for no Japanese ever enters the tub without 
previously washing and soaping himself down thor- 
oughly. During the two weeks I remained at this hotel 
I saw nothing in the way of promiscuity which would 
justify the usual reports. 

The morning wash is one to be avoided by the owner 
of sensitive ears. That, too, is communal, and takes 
place before a copper trough with running water, tiny 
faucets, and small individual movable basins. Each 
individual appears with a toothbrush stuck in his mouth 
as though it were a pipe. It is a common sight. Dressed 
in light kimonos, Japanese men will be seen wandering 
along the streets to the public baths, sucking their 
powdered brushes. But once before the trough, they 
scrub as though it were the first time in a week the 
chance has been given them. The snorting and coughing 
and splashing and spluttering can be compared only to 
the sporting of a family of seals, and the prize for noise 
goes to these land animals. I have frequently been 
wakened by the sound of an early riser at his veranda 
clearing his throat — and he had a hard time of it. 

On the whole, I should judge that these emigrants are 
as good a type as will be found anywhere in Japan. 
They invariably think favorably of America, and seldom 
will you find one who returns to Japan without planning 
to go again to America. Generally they go home only 
for a visit. 

**I came back to Japan," one emigrant told me, "to 
try to start a business on the American system, but it's 
no use. It's impossible to break down the customs and 
habits of our people. They prefer to work twelve hours 
a day indifferently rather than only eight but more 



22 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

rapidly." So he was determined to return to America, 
where he now felt more at home. 

Then a lull came over the hotel. Boxes were packed 
and labeled. Guests were all out, visiting friends for the 
last time. One small boy appeared clad in American 
clothes from head to foot. That was his debut into his 
new life. Will he return an Oriental or an American? 
Not an American — if his government can help it. I 
came across a large map of the Western states of America 
giving the number of Japanese who have settled in the 
different localities. It seems certain that no individual 
would go to so much trouble and expense to keep tab on 
his fellow-countrymen abroad. 

After a fashion, I had made friends with these people 
and found them pleasant, but it was hard to secure a 
common basis for anything like permanent friendship. 
At first, however, I thought it was quite possible and 
encouraged each new visitor. 

The first visitor to come into my room to cheer me out 
of my loneliness was about as meek and humble a little 
person as I have ever met. He seemed bowed down by 
some unutterable sorrow, as though, by foul mischance, 
the ambition of his life had been frustrated. If I would 
only come and live with him, he said, he would offer me 
his home at a very low rate. His motives? He would 
have me around all the time and improve his English 
while he would teach me Japanese. He "guaranteed" 
me thirty scholars at two yen a month. 

*'The way Japanese live is not so bad as foreigners say 
it is," he wrote me in a note; adding that, if I agreed, 
he would rent a large house. I told him to get the 
house (he intended to move anyway) and I would come 
and visit him, and then decide. He did, and I accepted 
his invitation to call. 

All this time, however, he was working for the pro- 
prietor of the hotel, and didn't want him to see us 



WHAT THE MEEK INHERIT 23 

together. So, when we started for his house, he went out 
first, and I caught up with him later. Though he was 
leading the way and I was a total stranger, he yielded to 
my every unconscious swerve. If I mistook his sidling 
for a desire to turn, he would turn with me, and several 
times I had to tell him to hold to his own way. At last, 
after a most circuitous journey within tiny narrow 
alleys, like burrow-runs, we came to the little fenced-in 
cottage. Through a tiny door we entered the tiny 
yard, barren of beauty as a witch; then, through 
another, into a stone-floored hall. Here we removed 
our shoes. A buxom woman bowed admission to wife- 
hood and proceeded to prove her station by meekness 
and by silence. The bare compartment, measuring no 
more than a single American room in all, but here com- 
prising three, could boast of no other sign of occupancy 
than two loud-ticking clocks and a hibachi. It was so 
dilapidated that I doubted whether it had ever seen 
better days. It might have been a haunted house from 
which the very spirits had fled. The meekness and the 
silence were most oppressive. Indeed my heart ached 
to come so close to so desolate a life. 

He, poor fellow, wore his humility with no philosophic 
resignation. He longed to emerge from his poverty, his 
slavery, but it was a longing which had no other courage 
than to know a hole here and a hole there through 
which it might run at random. I did not suggest one 
hopeful promise, nor try to stimulate one fertile pos- 
sibility that he did not discourage before he had turned 
its meaning over in his mind. He was a slave. He 
worked from five in the morning to nine and ten at 
night (and that gave good reason for the presence of 
two clocks); yet when, offhand, I suggested that a 
Japanese workingman makes a yen (fifty cents) a day, 
his astonishment showed that his own wage was much 
less, 



24 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

**A superintendent of police, a friend of mine, gets 
only thirty yen a month," he told me. And his poor 
young wife, too, quiet, not as a mouse but as a dead 
soul, lived and moved and slept in that everlasting 
senselessness of things. During the time that I spent 
with them the rampage of rats sent shivers through me. 
They must have been ten -pound beasts. The walls 
trembled. I have never heard such wildness and such 
vigor between walls before. 

Thus I obtained my first insight into the life of the 
Japanese toiler. Of course, anxious as I was to live 
with the people, it was out of the question to do so here. 
His offer was the "best room" with bed and food, all for 
nine yen a month (just $4.50). I gave an evasive answer. 

While I was thus investigating every bit of humanity 
that came across my path in the hotel, I began to be 
more conscious of the world around me. I was begin- 
ning to single out certain elements in the weird and 
jumbled sounds of the streets outside. At night, when 
the stillness of sleep was settling over the city, the thin, 
sad, pleasing notes of the traveling blind massageur's 
fife would call around the comer, and, from a distance, 
would answer the attenuated note of a comrade's appeal. 
It was lovely to listen to. It reminded me of Liszt's 
Hungarian Rhapsodies, of Dvorak's "New World 
Symphony." And as the distant fife-sounds seemed to 
echo the nearer call and, yet, to accompany it, so the 
unseen soul of Japan seemed to harmonize in appeal 
with western sorrow. 

This is the advantage of the wanderer. To him the 
whole world becomes a symphony, with the rich and 
poor of every land as the march triomphale or theme 
path^tique. To him Old World and New World sym- 
phonies in sadness blend out the demarcations of private 
pain. 

There was more than the melody of the blind mas- 



SOUNDS 25 

sageur in the symphony of street-sounds outside my 
hotel. Beggars, religious and otherwise, minstrels with 
conch shells, priests in tremendous straw hats under 
which you could not see the face, would chant as they 
passed quickly along. And on a bench, one day, sat a 
coolie, alone, singing as though all his heart were over- 
flowing — whether with joy or sorrow I cannot say. The 
Japanese are always singing, though one must not con- 
fuse this word, which I use for want of a better, with 
anything like real music. Rather is it overflowing good 
spirits which know no form. 

More like real music was the progress of the newsboy 
down the street. He did not cry the latest cables. 
From his hips he would hang some bells, and, as he ran 
along at a regular pace, the jingling announced the 
coming of the news. He was as proud of his calling as 
though he were bringing the good news from Aix to 
Ghent. As he slipped away into an alley, his body 
would veer in the direction of the turn taken, like one so 
poised that only perfect steering could maintain his 
balanced love of life. 

There was a constant ringing of bells. Runners in 
groups or singly would jingle their announcements of 
plays at the movies ; the rickshaw man would ring as he 
pat-a-patted by with his soft cloth shoes; and the 
bicycle fiends honked their horns or trrrrrr-ed their 
bells as they tore through the streets with maddened 
pace. These riders' faces were set ; their kimonos filled 
before the wind ; and woe betide him who did not get out 
of the way. As they passed, the confusion of life on the 
street became a series of scattered eddies, and the slow 
plodding vender, who pulled a low cart, would blow his 
unmelodious horn on the unimportance of being in 
earnest. When one of these frantic riders did decide to 
stop, he did not slow up cautiously as he approached his 
halting-place. He came to with the wind, braking 



26 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

himself with his wooden clog, which was as firm on his 
foot as ever our shoe could be. And when he dis- 
mounted, he did not do it, as we do, by throwing the 
right leg backward over the seat, but by pulling it over 
the bar in front of him. When he started off again, he 
pedaled, not by working his knees up and down, but by 
kicking them outward as though the seat were too low. 
This, I presume, was due to the squatting on floors to 
which all Japanese are accustomed, and to the skirt 
about his legs which hampered his movement. 

One night a weird chanting sounded down the street of 
the settlement, and then came the strangest sight I had 
ever seen. Forty- three coolies, each pulling on a branch 
of rope tied to a main line, came dragging and chanting 
as they pulled a wagon bearing a tremendous engine 
boiler. That, no doubt, was the way the Pyramids were 
built, and the Wall of China. 

By this time the interest of the maids and servants in 
their strange foreign guest was beginning to lapse, and 
the service to fail. The two little maids liked me well 
enough, and I them. But it began to irritate me to 
have them slow and cumbersome, and the fact that no 
one took any interest in me, aside from an occasional 
attempt at English, made me eager for new worlds to 
conquer. I was not taken about to see the Japanese 
world, as happens to more officially guided persons. 
So I saw that I should have to guide myself. One of the 
emigrants advised me that he knew of a hotel run by a 
Japanese who had been to America, where the service 
was much better. Thither I went. 

The hotel was a three-story structure — a skyscraper 
for that neighborhood — of wood and mud. The en- 
trance was stocked with baggage. One left one's shoes 
on the dirt floor and stepped upon a little platform at 
the foot of the stairs. To the right was the open room 
used as an office. Ascending the stairs would be, I 



ODORS AND NOISE if 

thought, no easy matter. They were steep as a 
ladder. 

The wife of the proprietor was a most cordial person. 
Exceptionally refined, pretty beyond her age, speaking 
English more as a Frenchwoman than a Japanese, she 
almost reconciled me to the place. She had lived in 
America fifteen years, and her sojourn had left a marked 
effect upon her. Her husband was a wiry, sharp fellow — 
not easy to run up against. 

She showed me two rooms, offered to place a bed for 
me, and returned to consult her husband; while I ex- 
amined my new abiding-place. A table and a chair 
were my only gain in moving. As to the bed — well, I 
have no knowledge of anything anywhere in the world 
ever having answered to the sacred noun **bed" in such 
a sacrilegious, scandalous manner. I really believe it 
was a makeshift for a coffin. It stood on four angle-iron 
legs four feet high, was twenty-four inches wide and 
about five feet long. An angle-iron frame held a straw 
mattress and, on top, the quilts. It wasn't wide enough 
to permit one to roll off — fall off was more to the point. 

I was hardly established in this outrageous mockery of 
things American when I learned that this hotel was also 
full of emigrants. Men who had returned for wives, now 
happily married, were going back to the States; and all 
around me were families en route for the New World. 
The brides were eager to see an American at close 
range, so that they might know what to expect on the 
other side. 

Though the proprietors had been to America, the 
hotel was still a good example of unregenerate Japanese 
hostelry. Of the five senses, it would seem that, as keen 
as the Japanese are in two, they are deficient in the 
other three. The narrow eyes, which seem subjected to 
so much struggle in seeing, reveal to the Japanese sights 
incomparable. Touch in art, though not a primary 



28 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sense, is indispensable in the Japanese expression of 
line and color in exquisite craftsmanship. But even as 
these companion senses have won so much glory for 
Japan, the three remaining have, so far, been_ seriously 
neglected, perhaps never developed or never possessed 
in rudimentary forms. Japanese can submit to the most 
violent and sickening odors, due to lack of sewage, 
without making any attempt to minimize them. They 
eat the simplest foods, with no taste, and find them 
palatable. As to hearing — well, enough has been written 
about their music. However, I will add a word. One 
evening my landlady played and sang for me. The 
accompaniment was suited to the song. That I was not 
touched was perhaps my fault; that it was a sad song, 
perhaps not hers. The mournful part of it was that 
either her voice was not made for the music or the music 
for another voice. Where the trouble lay I am not 
certain. I wish I could be as certain that there was no 
trouble. That was the sad part of it, for the effort to 
accomplish something was intense. 

Aside from the abominable odors and the noise, I 
began to see here, too, that service in a Japanese hotel is 
not planned for the purpose of holding guests per- 
manently. Confusion obtained, and the tawdriness in 
efforts at foreign ways was amazing. The only thing 
that kept me from leaving the place precipitately was 
the daughter of the house — a playful little creature 
whose innocence was a study. I had arranged to teach 
her English and she was to help me with Japanese, a 
language into which I had made inroads to the extent of 
two real words. She was extremely apt, and anxious to 
learn, and would play about like a little kitten. 

I am convinced that good things do not come in flocks 
and herds. At least 'tis certain good baths do not. 
My objection to bathing in the same room and the same 
water with thirty-odd guests, male and female, was met 



UNCONSCIOUS VIRTUE 29 

with but one alternative — the pubHc bath. As though 
the one at the hotel were not public enough. Most 
likely the Japanese regard dense steam as sufficient 
privacy for ordinary mortals. The alternative offered 
me was not the one across the street, where a perpetual 
stream of bathers cleansed itself of its honest sweat each 
day, but the one and only good public bath in Kobe. 
The one to which Chinese, being more modest, go. The 
hotel boy came to guide me, one moonlight night, and 
led me above the city to the foot of Suwayama. 

The person who tries to describe Japan without due 
regard both to its pleasant and unpleasant sides is 
painting shadows'on the morning mist. But son^imes, 
out of the very mists of Japanese illusiveness, one fre- 
quently runs into something even lovelier than illusion. 
The clouded moo^-kft such a wreck of reality as we 
reached the region of the baths that it seemed we had 
entered another world. The fine homes along either 
side, rich and immaculate, filled me with envy. To our 
left, clambering up the hillside, steep and wooded, were 
more homes and more hotels, with electric lights in 
frosted globes staring out into the night like monster 
glowworms. The soft, fiat surface of the paper windows 
spread the inner lights as though the radiance of human 
gentleness were imprisoned behind those slender wooden 
bars. 

It must have been because of the moonlight, but the 
yard we entered seemed exquisitely arranged. Japanese 
gardens are in a sense prohibitive, compared with the 
broad lawns and soft flower-beds in the West. They are 
too set-up and stiff, with rockeries to be looked at, not 
lounged upon. But none the less, pictorially, they pos- 
sess incomparable charm when not too heavily massed. 
Within such a garden, close up against the hill, stood 
these baths. 

The room assigned to me cost me thirty sen and was 



30 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

neat and inviting. Fresh water was let into a stone tub 
half sunk into the floor, and steam turned on to heat it. 
I had taken an hour to cleanse myself, and thought my 
companions would be impatient, but when I emerged and 
looked into the cheaper section — it costs only five sen 
there — I saw them soaping and scrubbing themselves 
as though they had just begun. I was not sorry, for it 
gave me ample time to observe the life about. Women 
and men were coming and going, singly and in couples, 
sexes parting or meeting at the doors. It was most 
delightful to watch them, calm in appearance, not over- 
gracious, but with a mien certainly indicative of the best 
relationships. There was none of our western modesty, 
no female bathers screaming and pretending when the 
door was opened upon them grouped in nakedness 
about the wooden water pit. Three old women had 
entered together. As the door was opened by the male 
attendant, they were sitting round the charcoal brazier 
warming their hands and their tongues, quite ladylike. 
Though the law prohibits men and women bathing 
together in public, it does not instil prudishness. They 
obey the law by ignoring it. 

My first impression of that bath-house made me rest- 
less. I had endured the noise, the dirt, the lack of ser- 
vice as long as it was possible for one of the West to 
submit to the ways of the East. The girls, at first ready 
to please, began to lag in their attentiveness, finally 
ignoring my bell or bringing my meals as late and as 
cold as possible. As long as one is keyed up with in- 
terest, one overlooks things which custom and habit have 
made him deem indispensable ; but then the enthusiasm 
wears off and a return to the other becomes painfully 
urgent. I could not even find peace or momentary 
solitude, for the neighbor emigrants walked in upon me 
at all hours eager to satisfy their anticipations by observ- 
ing me or practising their English. My only satis- 














PERCHED UPON THE HILLSIDE AGAINST A BACKGROUND, 
SOBER AND SOOTHING 




IN THAT ROOM I COULD FORGET THE TENNO S PALACE 




AT LEAST THERE WAS SOMETHING PICTURESQUE IN THE ARMOR OF THE SAMURAI 





MEEK AND HUMBLE WHEN 
SERVING ME 



WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE SAW 
IN HER MIRROR 



SUWAYAMA 31 

faction was in being able to study what is regarded as 
the proper behavior of a bride. She was young 
and sweet and retiring, and her husband as contrary as 
was humanly possible. 

But at the hotel there was not enough contact with 
the people in actual affairs to keep my interest alert. 
For many days I had set my heart on a house close to 
the baths at Suwayama. One day I asked a Japanese 
gentleman living nearby if he knew whether one could 
rent a portion of it. Strangely enough it turned out 
that it was a boarding-house, and he offered to make 
my wants known to the proprietors. Arrangements 
were soon completed. 

The house was perched upon the hillside, with long 
glass verandas affording a view over the whole of Kobe 
and of Osaka Bay. The housekeepers showed me a 
large room in the comer of the upper story, assuring me 
that as soon as it was vacated I could have it. I felt 
that, if I could live in that room, I could forget the 
Tenno's Palace. 

Returning to the hotel, I announced my determination 
to move, and made arrangements accordingly. The 
landlord was most exact in his bill, deducting to the sen 
for meals I had not taken, and expressing regret at my 
going. We parted the best of friends. 

Thus I was promoted. From an ordinary vagabond, 
I became a boarder. From moving among emigrants, I 
climbed one step in the social order of Japan. 

3 




Ill 

I BECOME A BOARDER 

HE house in which I had found quarters 
had been built as a private hospital. 
Therefore, though it was thoroughly 
Japanese, it possessed some exceptional 
features and advantages. It stood upon 
a stone foundation fully ten feet high, 
plumb up against the hill overlooking the city. The 
green backgroimd was sober and soothing, and the air 
was fresh, with plenty of sunshine. On occasion the 
mist would clear away from over Osaka Bay, exposing 
the hills of Yamato — the seat of Japan's ancient pride — 
each separate ravine blocked with sunshine or with 
shade, making one with a lovely crystal panorama. 
The point to the right almost reaches Awaji Island, 
forming the inner neck of Kii Channel — the great wide 
path of the scores of steamers bound for Yokohama and 
**home." Then, Awaji, itself, the first island of Japan, 
stands out crystal clear. But immediately beneath 
stretches the city of Kobe with its gray-tiled roofs so 
monotonously dull — miles upon miles of them without 
a ripple of distinction to break up the regularity, 
stretch till it seems they reach Osaka, twenty miles 
away; stretch to the right, including what was once the 
city of Hyogo. Symbol-loving Japan has made of the 
land of Hyogo and Kobe two great fans overlapping 
each other. The only things now to break up Japanese 
picture-making imaginativeness are the towering chim- 



MY HOUSEKEEPER 33 

ney stacks of the new steel mills to the left and the 
bridgelike cranes of the great dockyards which butt out 
into the waters before Hyogo at the right. 

The harbor is alive with sailing vessels and ocean 
liners panting into rest as though weary of inces- 
sant sailing. From some barely a rift of smoke issues. 
From the homes not a sign of life. Not a chimney any- 
where in all that vast crowding to tell of hearth-fires 
burning — yet they do. And though the unreaUty of 
Japan is constantly reaching out to take the foreigner 
in its grasp and one must ever strive against it, I felt 
that by coming here, into this boarding-house upon the 
hill, I would be able to gain some of its living qualities 
without destroying its illusiveness. 

The gate permitting entrance to my fortress was 
dilapidated, too far gone for its massive doors to swing 
upon their primitive hinges. One removed one's shoes 
in the little chamber-hallway, but generally took them 
along, for there was no telling who might be the next 
visitor. Up a dozen steep steps, a sharp turn to the 
left — and the "ladder" lay two stories' length upward. 
They were real stairs but steep, and one invariably 
struck his unprotected toes upon them. One little 
room on the ledge above, in the foundation, as it were; 
a series of rooms on the floor above ; and then the main 
floor on top. The kitchen stood out leftward, like a 
handle to the building. 

I had taken a room on the lower floor only on condition 
that the large comer room above be given me as soon as 
vacated. The housekeeper, a rather good-looking young 
woman of about thirty, with ladylike tendencies, as- 
sured me the gentleman occupying it would leave within 
a week. The week began to drag on to fortnightliness, 
dangerously approaching the ripe old age of a month, 
and all my inquiries were fruitless. Realizing that 
dainty ways in such circumstances as my landlady's 



34 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

were the very essence of tact and courtesy, I at last 
resorted to diplomacy to gain my ends. I made friends 
with the occupant of the desired room. He was the 
son of a well-to-do business man of Tokyo. He was 
living here in Kobe as representative of his father's firm 
which handled camphor products for the cure and pre- 
vention of colds. Anticipating a journey abroad, he 
wanted to improve his English. So influential a person 
as that was a good ally in my determination to go one 
floor higher up. He made arrangements with the 
housekeeper and the room next door suddenly became 
vacant. Our being next door to each other would 
facilitate our exchange of language lessons, he said — 
and the transfer was made. His enthusiasm began to 
grow. He would soon be able to speak English fluently. 
His gratitude was miraculously commensurate with his 
enthusiasm. ** Foreigners like this room," he told me, 
and before I knew it he was the occupant of mine, and I 
of his — the prize I was after for six weeks. 

And grateful indeed was I. Below, as the summer 
approached, the smells from the closet and kitchen had 
become imbearable. I should not have been able to 
endure it. Up here I was to be free from all such incon- 
veniences. But I had to pay for it. The housekeeper 
had on all occasions shown herself reluctant in the 
matter. Her regular features, unusually expressive for 
a Japanese woman's face, fell. She even argued against 
it, but seeing that he was willing and I determined, she 
yielded. Then she stated her terms. It was just 
double the amount he had paid for it. I acceded, and 
became the proud occupant of a room, twelve and a 
half mats in size. Japanese never discuss houses ac- 
cording to rooms, nor rooms according to measurement 
in feet; to them a house or a room is so many mats big, 
each mat being the standard size — six by three feet. 
My room, twelve and a half mats, was therefore about 



MY TROUBLES BEGIN 3S 

fifteen feet square. Entrance from the hall was by way 
of two large paper sliding doors ; the wall to the left was 
also two large paper sliding doors; the wall opposite 
was four smaller translucent paper sliding doors, opening 
out into the balcony; the wall to the right was set off 
as the usual alcove called tokonoma and two jiku or 
kakajiy hanging scrolls, and shelving called chigai dana 
because one is a little above the other. 

But what a difference! I was wakened the next 
morning from a deep sleep by the sun, which had poured 
itself into my room through the open sliding doors. It was 
undoubtedly grateful that some mere mortal had thrown 
wide his portals for it to enter — ^Japanese generally sleep 
with their doors shut tight. It was a perfect morning; 
the display of light was like golden silk which the sun 
was bidding me take for a garment for my soul. 

The Bay was clear for miles and miles — all the way 
to Osaka, and the mountains beyond, which shut in the 
Inland Sea, Japan's Mediterranean, its Idsumi-nada. 
The sailboats seemed delicate and paper-like, barely 
resting on the smooth surface. Even the weighty and 
more commanding steamers stood smoking with pride, 
but floating with the same buoyancy. So everything 
conforms to nature : empires and villages, emperors and 
fishermen. What a pageant of life has passed across 
that sea, and only the barest glimpse of it can again 
fall before human inquiry. 

Life, it seems, is simply a matter of space, of distance 
or of nearness. When first I walked the narrow little 
streets of Japan, tired of the outside view of things, I 
imagined the more intimate contact to be all glory and 
loveliness. My first real disappointment was in finding 
the inner, closer contact still as illusive. I soon began 
to miss that distant perspective; I became too pre- 
occupied with being with and with avoiding being with. 
Until I moved up-stairs, I thought nothing more de- 



36 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sirable than that room; but the sulkiness of the house- 
keeper spoiled all the pleasure of final possession. I 
could not make it out. But then it began to dawn upon 
me that, being a foreigner, she was afraid I would not 
put up with her using the room in common with me as a 
Japanese would. And that room was the pride of her 
life. Into it she could bring her friends when the right- 
ful lodger was out — or even when he was in. No 
foreigner would stand that. A foreigner, when he takes 
a room, expects to use it himself, he wants his privacy. 
And so she was not happy, and I would see her in my 
neighbor's room, hear her chatter away with him for 
hours till I learned, through repetition, that I was the 
subject of her conversation, so often w^ould ''Seiyojin'' 
(foreigner) come into the string of syllables. Then, the 
grinning, yellow face of her husband would appear 
through the glass pane which is always found near the 
bottom in the latticed-paper sliding doors, and pushing 
one aside, he would enter on all fours. My conversa- 
tion with him would interest the others, and before long 
the whole lot of them — boarder, housekeeper, servant- 
girls — would be squatting on my floor. The conversa- 
tion would all center in me, but not a word was 
directed to me. It was most difficult to get a line 
of it interpreted. But there they would all stay, in 
my room, till the midnight hours called them all to 
sleep. 

As the weeks wore on, the food the housekeeper was 
supposed to prepare for me in foreign style began to 
tax my endurance. The arrangement had been that 
I was to have all my meals there, but I soon went out for 
my lunch; more often than not I would remain in town 
for my dinner, too. But even the simple breakfast 
began to deteriorate. Her carelessness in the matter of 
dishwashing compelled me to institute a reform which 
was not at all to her liking. Domestic science has not 



PUTTERING 37 

yet come in on the breakers of westernization which 
reached the shores of Japan. 

I called my neighbor to my defense. ''Would you 
explain to her," I pleaded, "that a frying-pan cannot be 
washed in cold water as Japanese wash a rice bowl, 
because the grease from the meat is not as yielding as 
the greaseless rice?" Yes, he would explain. And for 
fifteen minutes I stood by, listening to a discussion that 
seemed to me mutually well understood. But I was 
becoming impatient. It seemed he was saying much 
more than I had asked him to. Surely he couldn't be 
merely repeating my thirty-odd words. ''What does 
she say?" I put in, pleadingly. "Just a moment, 
please," and off he skated again on the joys of an expla- 
nation. Then it dawned on me that he might not alto- 
gether have understood. "Did you understand me?" I 
broke in — and discovered that grease was not in his 
vocabulary. 

But that was only the beginning of my troubles. 
From one to the other of the resident boarders — gener- 
ally intelligent young business men, clerks, and agents 
representing Tokyo or Osaka firms, young men just 
returned from business in Java, China, or America — as 
acquaintanceship would arise I would rope them into 
helping me to solve my domestic problems. Very often 
the housekeeper herself would call in a new arrival to 
tell me she could or could not assent to a reform. Invari- 
ably the new arrival could speak very good English — 
that is, until he approached me. Then it was confusion 
worse confounded. 

Henceforth let no one tell me anything about woman's 
superior intelligence in the matter of household affairs. 
Even in so simple a matter as making toast, I had to 
train the housekeeper not to cut the bread too thick, and 
to hang all the dishes in places I assigned to them. She 
would come and quietly and good-naturedly submit to 



38 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

my instruction. Her face would shine with satisfaction, 
and she would forthwith turn to pass the information on 
to her maids. I would see to it that they thoroughly 
imderstood what I wanted. But no sooner had they 
shown any skill than off they would take themselves, 
disgusted with the ways of their lady-like mistress. 

Once two little mites came into her employ. They 
looked like two little sisters in a fairy tale. They could 
not have been over twelve years apiece, and were just 
about each other's size. So much so that 'twas hard to 
say which was trying to be big sister to the other. Both 
were, however, as pretty and as kittenish as they could 
possibly be. They dressed like little geisha with their 
sleeves somewhat longer than the servant-girl usually 
wears, and they climg to each other like the babes in 
the woods. The housekeeper had taken them in to 
train them, but they disappeared within three days after 
their arrival, most likely to go off telling others that they 
had had experience with foreigners' ways. 

One evening the housekeeper puttered about with the 
few plates and the knife and fork and two pots for fully 
an hour. I wanted to work and be quiet, but she 
seemed determined to remain about all evening. I 
called her and suggested that one of the girls be assigned 
to do my work for me and that it could be done in ten 
minutes. I demonstrated. But she objected that to 
select one girl for that would make the other jealous. 
Probably to leave a girl alone on a job would make her 
unhappy — ^Japanese dread being alone. However, she 
agreed, but the arrangement lasted only a short while. 

She got two other girls — this time of different size and 
capacity, and so imevenly balanced in intelligence and 
interest as to make them safe. Then she would com- 
mence to cook, and the two maids would stand idly 
looking on. And the simplest sort of task took hours and 
hours in the doing. 



INCESSANT LABOR 39 

But pretty generally it was the other way round. The 
housekeeper would spend her days gossiping with the 
boarders in the house, while the two girls slaved from 
morning to night. They would have to rise at five to 
prepare the breakfast of broiled fish, rice, soups, and 
pickles for all the household — about ten or twelve 
people — and though it was in the main mere puttering, 
they were kept running up and down the stairs all day 
long. Very often the girls would come in and throw 
themselves down on the mats in my room, where 
they would pretend to have work to do, just to be able 
to rest a moment. And for all that labor they received 
lodging, the simplest possible meals of rice and pickles 
and tea, and five yen, or two and a half dollars a 
month. 

In a Japanese house the first morning task is removing 
the quilts and sweeping and dusting. It is in a sense a 
bit of doll-house absurdity. The maid comes in with 
a wet cloth and mops all the woodwork. Then she 
follows with a soft broom which raises the dust from the 
mats; and finally she raises both noise and dust with a 
cat-o'-nine-tails usually made of strips of cloth. And 
the work is done. Yet the effects are miraculous, for 
the straw mats conceal the presence of the dust which 
has only been slightly disturbed. 

The question of cleanliness was the cause of consider- 
able dissension, so much so that I was compelled to call 
my place the house I quarrel in. It came to a ''show- 
down " one day. I found my dishes and pots unwashed, 
and — what was worse — the oil the maid had used to 
grease the frying-pan full of tiny little flies. I raised a 
rumpus and brought down a revolution upon my domains. 
The housekeeper left in a fuss; my neighbor could not 
appease her; she called her ''rickshaw" husband, who 
coldly notified me that they couldn't do what I wanted 
them to do, and that I might leave if I wasn't satisfied. 



40 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

But it was too soon in the stage of my boarding-house 
life for me to leave abruptly. So I told them I would 
"look" for another place. I thought of finding a house 
for myself, but that would have cut me from contact 
with these people. Seeing, however, that they made an 
effort to serve me more carefully in spite of their threat, 
I stayed on. But it taught me a lesson. I was in 
Japan, and they were at home. It was an example in 
racial conflict. When Japanese come to America, the 
difficulty is that they tend to lower our standard of 
living; we in Japan have the opposite effect. But the 
proprietors were ready to reduce the rates rather than 
increase the efficiency of service. 

The attitude of the husband made me respect him 
more. He had always been most cordial and respectful, 
but I had paid little attention to him. He was, I knew, 
the jinrikisha puller for the tea-house across the way, 
and he seemed highly honored by my presence. He 
seldom interfered in any home affairs, yet was always 
steady in his ways, always at home and never drunk. 
He was fairly tall for a Japanese, and — as is to be ex- 
pected from a position requiring so much running — 
slender. How it happened that one so lowly rose to such 
an exalted station as husband to so ladylike a house- 
keeper I was never able to learn. Of his wife I have said 
much and shall have more to say. Who she was and why 
I learned only at the close of my career as boarder in 
Japan. But he? — well, I rather liked him. He was a 
good sort. He was more intelligent than even some of 
the young men rooming there, quick to understand what 
word I wanted or to correct me when I had not expressed 
myself well — and, what is best, really honest. He helped 
her with the housework, washed dishes, and, on the 
whole, was a model husband. His face was always 
beaming and his manners always courteous. And I 
shall never forget the glee with which he told me he was 



GHOSTS AND FAIRIES 41 

to become a chauffeur and would soon give up pulling 
a riki. 

So it was not alwa^^s a case of quarreling. At times, 
the kindliness and friendliness were touching. And 
with each such reaction I would pull myself back to that 
feeling prevailing in the world that everything in Japan 
is really lovely and picturesque, if only I were capable 
of appreciating it. I felt that I must see and know the 
things of Japan which have made it the best written-up 
country in the world. Sometimes I would watch the 
features and the ways of these people and wonder what 
it is that makes them so attractive to us. Then I would 
note the Japanese woman's lips. They are anything but 
pretty; perhaps because they have never been kissed. 
But the smile of which they are capable is the loveliest 
expression imaginable. It is a drawing together of the 
lips as though focusing all inner delight for general inocu- 
lation. This is slightly due to the protrusion of the 
teeth, I would note, but the effect was none the less 
lovely. 

One especially attractive creature was a little girl of 
eighteen. She was pretty, she was lovable, she was 
energetic; she was the favorite with all the boarders. 
For that very reason she did not stay long, though she 
served longer than all others. 

Then there came Hana San, and introduced a fairy 
into our midst which turned out to be a ghost. She had 
attempted to open a sliding door or shutter on one of our 
windows. It wouldn't yield. She peeped through a 
little hole and was horrified at the sight of an apparition, 
in full attire, defying her. Naturally, maiden-like, she 
vanished, leaving the ghost master of the situation. 
So far-reaching are the effects of an angry ghost's 
vengeance that this innocent maiden is now far from 
the place, trying to subdue her terror and looldng for 
a ghostless neighborhood — and another job. How- 



42 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ever, she left our neighborhood buzzing with rumor 
and skepticism. 

After that we had Fume San for a while — and she de- 
parted. She returned one evening. Not to stay, how- 
ever, for she was sick. A pain in her right side. The 
doctor advised an operation. She couldn't afford it. 
The other girls whispered to themselves about her, while 
she told me things about the landlady and how badly 
she treats the girls. She sought our sympathy. My 
neighbor acted as interpreter, and I got her story. 

She had been deserted by a renegade husband. To 
look at her one could hardly have blamed him, for she 
was fat, dirty, sloppy. She was lop-sided and all out of 
proportion. She had neither the Japanese woman's 
ohi back nor the foreign woman's corseted front (of 
which Japanese women make so much fun). She had 
always been as hard a worker as had been on the place, 
from six in the morning till eleven at night, responding 
quickly with her ''hat'' whenever called. Relaxation 
of a kind was permitted her, but it surely was not recrea- 
tion and most decidedly not play. Ever and always she 
was there with a meek, submissive Httle smile, a smile 
chilling and cheering at the same time. 

And this is her story. She was married at seventeen — 
ten years previously. Five years later her husband dis- 
appeared. Her only consolation was that after an ab- 
sence of five years she was again "free." But free for 
what? To marry again? Surely not. That was the 
story of her life, and I am sure it was a full account, for 
no life seems so nearly void as hers. She worked for the 
five yen a month wage and her fare. Her fare was so 
meager that she eagerly accepted the balance of the milk 
I was unable to use — and, if offered an orange of some 
food, she was as delighted as a child. These things she 
would take slyly, lest the housekeeper see her. When 
I gave her a little money, she bowed to the floor a dozen 



PRAYING FOR BEAUTY 43 

times. A messenger knocked at the door one day when 
she was still a servant. A relative had come to ask her 
for a contribution for the aid of a sick relation. And 
she gave it. 

The housekeeper ignored her during the hour of her 
visit, yet she set to work washing dishes and, in fact, 
doing more than the housekeeper herself, evidently to 
earn a meal. With the few yen my neighbor and I gave 
her she said she would return to her country where she 
might be cured — or? 

We had one more girl in the collection during my eight 
months of residence there. She was Hinai San, likewise 
fat and dirty. My neighbor and I were chatting when 
O Kiku San, the pretty one, came. He and I had been 
discussing the difference between the relation of the 
sexes in America and in Japan. When O Kiku San sat 
down, I began to tease her, and then we both com- 
menced to play about with her, chasing her all over the 
room. Hinai San was down below, and, hearing what 
was going on up-stairs, came up timidly. But feeling 
that she was not pretty nor attractive, she remained on 
the stairs. Presently we heard her crying, and my 
neighbor obtained her confession that she was lonesome 
because I hadn't asked her to join. Of course I said 
she should come in. After a little while she tried to 
enter the fun, whereupon my neighbor made some un- 
complimentary remark. She pressed him as to what he 
said, then urged him to whisper it to her. But he 
refused. Not knowing how to get roimd the situation, 
she spat in his face. He complained to the housekeeper, 
but evidently it was not taken as a gross offense, for 
while they were discussing it she went on washing the 
dishes unconcerned. She remained for four days with- 
out being discharged. In the meantime she learned 
that the remark had been to the effect that she was not 
beautiful. One night she announced that she would 



44 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

make a pilgrimage to Maya-san, one of the temples on 
top of the mountain of that name, nearby — to pray for 
beauty. The housekeeper let her go in all seriousness. 
The next morning, it was discovered that she had come 
in at midnight and had taken all her clothes away with 
her. Why she found it necessary to abscond no one 
could tell. 

The ease with which everybody entered every one 
else's room was at first confusing. At one time I found 
my landlady sitting on the mats in my room combing 
her hair as though it were her own boudoir. She and 
her husband and servants would come and go without 
invitation and consideration. 

Returning at about eleven o'clock one evening, I found 
the sliding paper screens open into my neighbor's room. 
With him sat the housekeeper's husband and one of the 
waitresses from the Tokiwa, the tea-house across the 
way. They were waiting for my return. A somewhat 
refined and attractive little person in spite of her plain- 
ness, with narrow eyes and sprightly ways — she took 
me by surprise. I had not thought those girls across 
the way had any spirit in them, so mechanical they 
seemed in their movements. But here she was, come 
all the way over just to meet this foreigner about whom 
they had all become quite curious. She bore herself 
with the greatest dignity. Her speech was quiet and 
reserved and she would have been taken for a woman 
from the upper class. She had come to visit the house- 
keeper, whose intimate friend she was, and allowed her- 
self to wait for my return. The friendship had been 
made through the husband having secured her the 
position. 

In honor of the occasion, the paper sliding doors 
separating my room from my neighbor's had been 
removed, making of the two one — without consulting 



SPYING ON A BRIDE 45 

me in the matter. This is a factor in Japanese life which 
can easily become a source of misunderstanding between 
natives and new arrivals. This lack of a certain sense 
of privacy is to the foreigner, accustomed to his solid 
walls and locked doors, shocking and irritating. Japanese 
dress and undress in public, and I have had friends, 
who came up to visit me in foreign clothes, take off every- 
thing down to their underclothes without as much as 
excusing themselves. 

My neighbors intruded upon me in good-natured 
sociability, and it never seemed to dawn upon them that 
I might be busy. They went even farther. As gener- 
ally there is a balcony on every house, a guest would 
wander along, indifferent as to whose room he might be 
passing. One evening the housekeeper and her ser- 
vants came running into my room. "Greenbie San. 
Shita niy beppin san arimasu.'' And so it was. Down- 
stairs there was a beauty. She was a Tokyo beauty, 
the bride of a man who had come all the way back from 
Java, where he was engaged in business, to secure a 
bride. She was a beauty. Worth coming from any- 
where in the world for. They rushed me down-stairs, 
to the balcony, and, each head trying to outreach the 
other without being noticed, we peeped through the 
glass pane in the lower part of the paper doors — and 
peeped. The poor, frightened little creature sat there, 
not daring to say a word. The bridegroom also sat 
upon his knees, as stiff and sedate as a daimyo, his hands 
open flat upon his knees. His mother-in-law, come to 
see the bride off, sat a little farther away chattering with 
his mother — an incessant sort of chatter. Then the 
beauty — worth coming from up-stairs to see — slid into 
the comer and forthwith began removing her costly 
bridal outfit, and transforming herself completely — 
within her kimono. Then the girl's mother took her 
departure — and we thought we had looked as long as we 



46 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

dared. Had there been no glass in those doors, the 
Japanese would have known how to see anyway. They 
would have wet their index finger and softly poked it 
through the paper — and thus provided themselves with 
a perfectly legitimate — in old Japan — ^way of spying 
upon an enemy or neighbor. 

This form of intrusion came very nearly being the 
ruin of me as a boarder. They had no conscience in the 
matter at all. So general had become the practice of 
visitors and boarders to come and observe me from an 
angle on the balcony, and so often did they walk straight 
up in front of my room and look in, that I determined 
to screen off the passageway. Here I at first found 
favor in my neighbor's eyes, and he persuaded the 
housekeeper to give me an old screen. But soon it 
began to irritate him and he found all sorts of excuses 
for its removal. Of course, his powers of persuasion 
were greater than mine, and the screen got the habit of 
coming down; but my powers of persistence were as 
great, and the poor screen would soon go up again. 
Each time I remonstrated and won my point, it being 
entirely a matter of my right to some privacy — that 
part of the balcony being solely mine, since my room was 
at the farthest end. One day I returned to find the 
screen had disappeared. I could not discover where it 
went to, nor did search throughout the house reveal it. 
It was simply gone — and no one knew what happened 
to it. Of course, I saw that complaint was useless. 

Slowly, as I began to understand a word or a phrase, 
I became aware of their gossip about me. Of course, all 
people gossip, but it is a bit too much to hear yourself 
discussed. To my face they were pleasant, but ridicule 
and dislike would show itself in other ways. I tried to 
see the situation reversed. A Japanese in America 
would not have received concessions such as I did, nor 
would any American boarding-house keeper have toler- 



DISPENSING ENGLISH 47 

ated half the innovations I pressed upon them. But it 
gradually dawned upon me that it was largely be- 
cause they recognized their own shortcomings that 
they stepped aside. 

Their interest in the stranger waned, however. Before 
many months almost every one in the house had had a 
few lessons in English from me. My neighbor had 
given up almost immediately. I was too systematic, 
and wanted to learn as much of Japanese as he 
learned of English. Being somewhat experienced in 
teaching, I was giving ten times more than I was re- 
ceiving. Since he knew a little English, as is the case 
with almost every Japanese of even the average intelli- 
gence, it was more easy to relapse into speaking English 
— and he always did. Most of our conversations became 
bilingual — the Japanese would use his English and I my 
Japanese. Then Azuchi San went to Tokyo for a fort- 
night, and when he returned he found another boarder 
filling his place as learner of English. Before two 
months went by I had had an agreement with every 
member of the household for the exchange of language 
lessons. In each and every case I found myself exhaust- 
ing my energies in trying to learn and to teach, but they 
were capable of coming with me only a certain distance. " 
I had plunged into the very depths of this Oriental 
sea of agglutinated sounds. But no two persons ever 
told me the same thing. In theory there are three 
languages in Japan: the written, the honorific, and the 
colloquial. In reality there are as many ways of saying 
the same thing as occasions on which you want to be 
polite, suggestive, or deceptive. When my housekeeper 
tells me, ''Anata wa kotoba wo yoku wakaru,^^ her face 
seems serious and she feels proud at being able to pass 
such a grave judgment. Literally she says, "How 
well 3^ou understand!" but I know she means: "What a 
stupid, ill-sounding, impolite boor you are! How your 
4 



48 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

voice rises and falls like a mountain range ! Considering 
you are only a foreigner, how well you speak!" But 
these are mere assumptions. 

My linguistic enthusiasm got me into trouble. Apart 
from the general absence of privacy, the insatiable desire 
on the part of all Japanese to master English, which 
never gets beyond, ''Gentleman, allow me to introduce 
myself to you for first time," made my quarters the 
general rendezvous for every boarder in the house, 
together with the housekeeper and servants. But in 
no case did I find real stick-to-it-iveness. Regularity 
was not in their natures. 

I became a voluntary martyr to the education of the 
youth of Japan. One day I met two boys. I simply 
asked them the direction, but they forthwith attached 
themselves to me. They asked if they could come to me 
for lessons. I yielded. They came. Next lesson they 
had another free pupil with them, and I began to see 
that the whole of Kobe would "beat a track to my door" 
should I raise no barrier. I had not asked them for any 
fee, and my fame went round. But what was provoking 
was that they did not come regularly. So I determined 
to set my rate at seventy-five cents a month each for 
twelve lessons. I knew they could not pay more. 
They continued for three weeks. By that time there 
were half a dozen zealots, quiet, mannerly, sitting in a 
semicircle upon my mats. Toward the end of the month 
they gradually dwindled and disappeared — without 
paying me. I was sorry for them, for in each case I 
would receive a letter reading thus: 

Dear Teacher: 

Please excuse me, for we cannot go to your house at this 
evening, because we are very busy with our works. 

Which meant that Kobe narikin firms, shipping, export, 
manufacturing firms, were bringing pressure to bear on 



A BUDDING ROMANCE 49 

them in the way of longer hours during the war-time 
rush. 

One held out the longest, and there was good reason. 
The little girl, daughter of the hotelkeeper mentioned 
in the previous chapter, had been coming to me for 
lessons twice a week. She was a bewitching little thing 
and always brought her little six-year-old sister along as 
chaperon. Of all, her interest and brightness were the 
best, and she learned rapidly. And it was on account 
of her that this other young fellow came so regularly. 
I began to see an interesting little bit of romance and 
nursed it indulgently — yet protecting the little girl as 
far as possible. I never would let them go off without 
her little sister, which indeed was most luikind and un- 
considerate. Then, strangely enough, the little girl 
stopped coming. I hadn't time to make inquiries, and 
some weeks passed. The last of my students also 
dropped away. One day I received a long sheet of paper 
neatly folded in the Japanese way, all written over like a 
valedictory. Translation revealed that it was an invi- 
tation to a wedding to take place in Tokyo. Little 
Kazu-ko, just gone fourteen, was to be married to a very 
refined and educated Tokyo gentleman just returned 
from years of residence in England. And my little 
romance had gone to smash. 

''Exchange" in the matter of lessons having proved 
itself so fruitless, I employed two teachers myself. 
One I kept for a week and the other for six weeks — but 
I found they neither knew how to teach nor were they 
really interested in doing so. The Japanese, in the 
matter of his language, still tries to keep the gates to 
his inner empire closed to the foreigner. 

One evening, just as my assistant arrived, two strange 
boys wandered in, dressed in their very best manners. 
They knew I was waiting for my lesson, but they stayed. 
We had to proceed with it in their presence. Then the 



5o' JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

housekeeper's husband brought a brazier and tea — and 
himself. And he stayed. When my lesson was over 
they began to discuss me and my pronunciation and the 
words I used and how I urged for my gohan (rice) and 
what not. And they stayed. I shuffled about, I wrote 
in a comer, I stood like an impatient horse — but teacher 
and student and attendant all stayed. At last my 
teacher, a little more alert, got up to go. Then he did 
go, and I had to open the door wider and hold it — 
waiting for the others to go, too. 

They had hardly gone and I set to work (nine o'clock) 
when the doors were pushed aside again and my house- 
keeper appeared, all smiles and sweetness, and pre- 
sented a new neighbor. She brought a steamer-chair, 
a brazier; and another chap came in from next door, and 
the lot sat themselves down in comfort and began 
talking. I went out, returned, but, like Poe's Raven, 
they still were sitting. They would have been there 
till midnight — as they often were — but I had to excuse 
myself because of a painful headache, and retired. 
They were always ready to use my room — ^it being the 
best in the house — for entertaining whoever happened 
to want entertainment. I was the pride of the house- 
keeper — and the neighborhood. 

My early enthusiasm for the dissemination of English 
among the Japanese, who trailed on my footsteps wher- 
ever I went, soon vanished. And though I never 
refused to dispense it, whoever asked, I learned that 
setting a definite price upon my time pretty generally 
acted as a strong deterrent. 

In time their interest in the foreigner waned. Peace 
prevailed. One evening, when things had become 
somewhat dull and I was deep in my work, the house- 
keeper introduced a new boarder. He had just returned 
from many years' residence in Java and spoke very good 
EngHsh. He told me she had expressed her sympathy 







1 


'^V^ 


g|| 


i 



JAPANESE WEAR FOUR-INCH CLOGS IN WET WEATHER, AND THEY NEED THEM 




THE SAWYER STILL HOLDS HIS OWN AGAINST PROGRESS 




WE HEARD HER CRYING. SHE CONFESSED SHE WAS LONESOME 



'^JAPANESE WAY'* 51 

because I was always alone and always working. I had 
no foreign friends and did not go out very much. So I 
discovered that there was some affection in her, though 
I had thought her very hard and selfish. And I would 
look at her and her people and feel contrite. In their 
own way they seemed to try to please, but how could 
it be possible where standards were so utterly different ? 

I wondered about the case with the Chinese. Do they 
come to Japan and dislike it at first, but gradually learn 
to love it as time goes on, as is the case of Americans in 
Europe or Italians in England? This much is true. 
To westerners Japan does not become more dear on 
acquaintance. In most cases the early enthusiasms 
fade and are replaced by distrust and even dislike. 
And I was fighting my hardest not to allow petty little 
personal experiences to embitter me against these 
people. 

I had made friends with a Japanese who had lived for 
ten years in California. His wife was a California-born 
girl and spoke perfect English. At his suggestion, she 
was to teach me Japanese, but, as I anticipated, our 
friendship and their knowledge of English stood in the 
way. They would not accept compensation, and I 
could not urge instruction. 

When I labored to make myself understood and 
failed, it irritated me. When a Japanese fails in a like 
attempt, he grins. This offends till you realize it is part 
of his custom. I upbraided my friend for laughing in 
my face when I once attempted to speak Japanese to a 
friend of his. I explained to him that that struck us as 
impolite. He acknowledged that it was so and that he, 
too, had been offended frequently when speaking English 
in the States. Yet he said: "That is Japanese way. 
Next time you speak Japanese, I smile again." And the 
fact that it was "Japanese way" seemed ample justifi- 
cation in his eyes. 



52 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

''Japanese way'* led to many other strange incon- 
gruities. As clean as the Japanese are reputed to be — 
and they do go to the bath twice a day in summer — I 
noticed that the young men in the house would use the 
ordinary bucket in which dishes were washed for face 
water, and would put their toothbrushes into the basin 
in which they had just washed their faces. 

"Japanese way" led to still other strange things. At 
eleven-thirty at night 0-Kami San would suddenly be 
inspired to song — yet there was no moon about. It was 
as endless as it was excruciating. Such things never 
seemed to bother the Japanese. One young man in the 
house took it into his head to practise singing at six 
o'clock every morning. Nobody complained. 

Suwayama Park being on the hill above us, the path 
thereto was immediately in front of our house. People 
passing day or night would give vent to song at all hours. 
It was not always unpleasant, especially when it was the 
result of mere good spirits and not sake. 

Every morning a flower-girl would pass through the 
neighborhood. She called, sadly, ''Hana-i\ hana-ii, 
hana-iro/' in three plaintive appeals. In summer the 
peddler calling "ice-cream" transformed for the moment 
this indefinable world, opening the strangling hold it 
had upon one through not knowing the language, and 
permitting dovetailing of consciousness. It is a queer 
sensation, this brushing aside of the curtain of obscurity 
which hangs over a stranger in such a land as this — and 
merely by a single familiar sound, "Ice-cream." One 
hears "waw^" and knows it means beans; ''hana'' and 
knows it is flowers, but "ice-cream" opens the doors of 
your world wide again. 

Japanese laughter is, when heard on the street below, 
not in any way different from that of westerners, and 
often I would be sure I had heard foreigners pass — 
which was not infrequently the case — only to find, when 



NARIKIN AND DREADNOUGHTS 53 

bending over the railing, that it was the laughter of 
Japanese. 

But then my attention would be drawn to the laughter 
of the merrymakers across the way. The tea-house 
was the finest and most expensive in Kobe, and was 
frequented by officials of the highest rank and the rich 
in general. To me it was there to watch, day and 
night, and there I made my observations of Oriental Hfe, 
its social and economic phases. There below were the 
long, wooden strips of grating across the length of the 
room. During summer the paper doors were removed. 
Every afternoon at about four I could see the waitresses, 
stripped to the waist, sitting before their little mirrors, 
making their toilet for the evening. Then the geisha 
would begin to arrive in all their gorgeous attire — mainly 
in red with gold-thread embroidery. The gentlemen 
narikin would come next, and the quiet waitresses would 
begin to slip about over the mats. Gradually, as the 
sake began to take effect the sounds would grow more 
and more audible, all would burst into song, accompanied 
by clapping of hands; or games between the men and 
the geisha would produce riotous outbursts of laughter 
— shrieks of laughter. Games only children would 
play in the West are here enjoyed by gray-haired men. 
The night would be filled with shrieking and singing 
and clapping of hands, which continued till midnight. 
The war having produced abundance of wealth, merry- 
making became even more riotous than Japanese them- 
selves could stand, and the police ordered that tea- 
houses be closed at midnight. At first the singing 
had continued till two and three o'clock. Then I was 
kept awake by the calling for rickshaws. A dainty 
maiden would clatter down the street below toward us, 
where was the bend in the road, and from there call out : 
''Danna San. Danna San. Icho.'' Or, ''Nicho/' or, 
*'Sancho/' as the case might be. She was calling: 



54 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

"Honorable Mr. Rickshaw man. One round.'* Or 
two or three. That is, a guest wanted one rickshaw, or 
two, etc. And then her little clogs clattered back again. 
Sometimes a man would call, and his bellow wakened 
the neighborhood. And from the distant rickshaw-shed 
a voice would answer, sleepily, ''Hat/' and soon soft, 
rubber-soled feet would patter up the slight grade. There 
were farewells, and the night would go to sleep again. 

Though we were on the edge of town the procession was 
incessant. I would lie awake hours wondering when the 
patter would cease, but it ended only in my falling asleep. 

Crowded as may be the world centers, such as New 
York and London and Paris, one accustomed to them 
doesn't wonder nearly so much as he does at the 
ceaseless processions in Japan. The steady streams of 
humanity which course through the main streets and 
by-streets of this little Empire are simply amazing. Of 
course, in a measure this is due to the narrow streets and 
the confusion of traffic with pedestrians. But this not- 
withstanding, one gazes out upon an Oriental street with 
no little misgiving who knows what population means to 
the peace of the world. 

Long after the noise of the tea-house had subsided 
I would stand and gaze out across Kobe, out to where 
the pneumatic hammers were incessantly thundering 
away at the steel hull of the superdreadnought — the 
Ise — ^which was then being built at the shipyards. And 
I would wonder what it was being made to protect. 
This? This laughter and hilarity of narikin, who 
spend their profits at these tea-houses? And I looked 
farther out over Japan and saw fifty millions working, 
or rather trying to do what specialization and organiza- 
tion have done elsewhere — doing it in the same slip- 
shod, crude, old-fashioned way as it was being done in 
this very little household into which chance had brought 
me. And I just wondered. 




IV 

SAKE AND SONG 

.ROM my balcony, late one afternoon, I 
looked down upon the street. From out 
of the Tokiwa tea-house came two geisha, 
gorgeously dressed in their tremendous bows 
of richly colored silk obi (girdles) round 
their fantastically embroidered kimonos — 
two tiny mites absolutely smothered in finery. ''They 
are being introduced to tea-house managers," the boy 
in the house informed me. ''And the two men walking 
behind them are their new masters." 

Oddly enough, just a few minutes later, a large, well- 
fed cow was being driven along the same street by a 
Japanese farmer. She, too, had some finery on her — a 
red-colored covering thrown across her back and hanging 
in braids down her sides. She was being taken to a 
temple to celebrate the passing of the period considered 
dangerous to growing rice. 

Already the waitresses in their little caged chamber 
across the way were squatting before their mirrors, their 
breasts bare. Then the usual arrivals of geisha in rick- 
shaws and the renewal of the screams of laughter left 
off at twelve the night before; men half drunk pursuing 
girls who are not afraid of being caught, but are paid for 
pretending to resist. Or some special geisha, fan in 
hand, kicking her trailing robes about in what is thought 
to be a dance — studied, exact, monotonous. The even- 
ing wears on; again there is quiet. The half-dozen Httle 



56 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

waitresses, having passed in and out among the guests 
serving food and sake for hours on end, must be 
wet with perspiration. Yet they still have their own 
beds to spread. To me, above, they seem to move 
noiselessly. Hardly caged animals; yet not unlike 
them. For an hour more they go backward and for- 
ward, apparently accomplishing nothing, even as before 
they seemed endlessly doing nothing. They loll about 
on the mats with quite becoming ease and grace. A long 
strip commences to imwind endlessly. It is the obi 
being put aside for the night. Not as gorgeous as that 
the geisha wear, but just as long and as conventional. 
A match strikes; the quick puff of smoke from the 
tiny pipe — ^and the pinch of tobacco is exhausted. 
Another is pressed into the little bowl; another and 
another. Again endless movement with nothing done. 
What long hours wasted against the need of sleep, it 
seems. - But even in such slight tasks life finds satis- 
faction. The day is long, they seem to say. How shall 
I pass it through, how fill the time of living? To- 
morrow? Oh, plenty of time for sleep. The day is long 
and duties come aplenty. They appear and disappear, 
nothing immodest in their movements. And then each 
creeps within the heavy futon (quilts), rests her head 
upon the wooden pillow, and the last one draws the paper 
sliding window across, leaving nothing but shadows for 
me to look upon. So, I am afraid, must I creep away to 
sleep ? 

Yet across the city, beyond the veil of simple tasks 
concealed, over a deep-blue gulch to where gHtter innu- 
merable lights, from over yonder comes the sound of the 
incessant pneumatic hammers. 

These were the Japanese narikin that day spending 
fortim.es earned easily out of the war. 

But what is it that induces so much noise and laughter? 
What can the grown-up Japanese see in these tiny little 



WHO BUT THE GEISHA 57 

mites, or even their more grown-up sisters, to lavish so 
much wealth and dignity upon them? To a sober 
western observer it seems the height of absurdity, and 
in one way is a striking commentary on Japanese 
character. The amusement, from our point of view, 
is extremely effeminate: clapping of hands, playing 
games with the hands such as the children play; chasing 
after girls while three-quarters drunk — such is the round 
of pleasure which night after night I witnessed from 
my room. 

True there were more dignified performances, as when 
the Minister of Communications came to stay there. 
An elaborate dinner was given, and the most attractive 
geisha obtainable were ordered. As I looked through 
the thin gauze curtains which hung across the inner open 
doorway it seemed like some fairy setting. A row of 
men had squatted upon the mats, eating a meal endlessly 
various. There seemed end neither to dishes nor to ap- 
petite. The sake flowed freely. Then the geisha com- 
menced to dance, and a more gorgeous spectacle could 
not be found anywhere. The Minister himself, though 
preserving the utmost dignity, was not too distasteful of 
the grosser enjoyments. Applause was profuse. But 
the guests disbanded somewhat earlier than usual — at 
eleven o'clock. 

It is customary to observe all sorts of events, business 
or otherwise, personal or national, with similar f eastings, 
and frequently foreigners are invited. Especially was 
this so during the war and when the armistice and peace 
were celebrated. Then narikin gave dinners which vied 
in elaborateness with those of the West. 

But the majority of evenings were spent in riotous ca- 
rousing in which Bacchus proved himself no anachronism. 

However much all other forms of Japanese social life 
may be closed to him, no foreigner is ever a total out- 
sider to these affairs. He is bound sooner or later to 



S8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

become friendly with some Japanese, and few Japanese 
have any conception of entertainment other than with 
the geisha. And I was no exception. I had gone to 
Osaka one day, and there, at a commercial exhibition, 
met a gentleman, who proved to be my preceptor ini- 
tiating me into the amenities of geishadom. My friend 
— for so I may now call him — ^was a sober little gentle- 
man devoted to his imusually charming young wife. 
"You wait for me half an hour and I be free to go with 
you show you Osaka. I will introduce you to my best 
of friend. You American, I know. I lived in America 
ten years. My wife was born in America. You wait 
half an hour. I promise." And that was my beginning. 

In a sense the Japanese are the most sociable people 
in the world. I found myself taken in by strangers 
everywhere, in just such a free and easy manner. Yet 
with the men at the boarding-house I found it almost 
impossible to become intimate. While home we were 
very friendly, but they never asked me to join them in 
any adventure. Girl friends are things practically 
unknown to them. Except the geisha, whom, other than 
his sisters, is a man to know? During my stay there 
my neighbor once brought up two girls on a visit; 
one was Eurasian, the other pure native. The absence 
of real privacy in Japanese houses minimizes any sus- 
picion which might attach itself to such a visit. I was 
introduced to them. I tried to be sociable, especially 
as they both spoke English fluently, but my efforts 
failed. 

Come to the home of the westerner and his wife will 
entertain you. The Japanese girl gets no such training 
and never knows what it is to be sociable with men. 
Therefore the Japanese cannot understand our courtesies 
and attention to young women. Naturally, they put 
upon it the wrong interpretation. 

Among the yoimg men living at the house, the subject 



PRIDE AND MORALITY 59 

of women seldom came up for discussion. From all 
appearances, they might all have been celibate priests. 
One day, however, we were watching the girls in the 
tea-house across the way, and I led them on to talk about 
morality in Japan. 

"Do young men ever have girl friends?" I asked 
one. 

*'0h yes," he answered, "they are beginning to, more 
and more." 

"Well," I ventured, "do they ever bring girls up to 
their rooms at their boarding-houses?" 

"No, they don't. It wouldn't be allowed," he assured 
me. * *In one house in which I lived two men occasionally 
brought women home with them for the night. They 
were star boarders and the housekeeper put up with it. 
But it's against the law except at tea-houses." 

The general tone of conversation with these young 
men was always restrained and decent. They spoke 
with a gentility which is the way of the thoughtful and 
educated young Japanese. Notwithstanding that drink- 
ing is nowhere taboo, neither of these two, on my floor, 
drank. They were not Christian, and even for Buddhism 
they had little regard, as is the case with most educated 
Japanese. Still, they intimated that they did not look 
with favor upon licentiousness, and were chauvinistically 
ashamed of their restricted districts — the cages. 

"Foreigners," said one of them, in answer to my 
question, "are perhaps on the average more moral than 
Japanese; but in principle our ways are just as good as 
yours. Foreigners, however, seem to us too proud." 
It was curious, for from my way of thinking he had 
completely reversed it. To me foreigners are by no means 
more moral. Some are too proud, but it's a different 
pride from that of the Japanese. Foreigners are more 
used to being proud, but the Japanese stamps and 
swaggers because he doesn't know how to be proud 



6o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

with dignity. He simulates or emulates too much the 
old-time samurai officiousness. 

I found it impossible to be pals with Japanese. Either 
the man is a narikin in the making and takes it upon 
himself to entertain you on behalf of his country, never 
letting you pay, or else he is poor and unashamed of 
his poverty, and always lets you pay. And in both 
cases it is pride. Yet he is overawed by any foreigner, 
and when he is poor he makes no pretensions. 

My friend, Mr. Suzuki, brought his ''best of friend," 
Hayashi, a Hyogo exporter, with him to my place one 
day. We looked across, as one could not help doing, 
to the Tokiwa. We chatted about it. "Have you ever 
been there?" he asked. I confessed. "Well, I will take 
you." And he was as good as his word. The entrance 
below was as attractive in its simplicity as a mere 
entrance could be. The waitresses knelt upon the mats 
at the door to receive their guests. The smooth, un- 
painted woodwork, the expensive screens, the spacious 
rooms — one felt he had come into a great temple turned 
pagan. Half a dozen geisha had been ordered, and we 
were assigned to an open room on an extension, with an 
unobstructed view of Kobe from every angle. It was 
merely a comer of the great open garden, as it were. 

The girls showed they were being taxed unduly, having 
to entertain a foreigner. I could not speak to them 
very well, and put myself in the hands of my friend. 
Being new to these intimacies, I requested that the girls 
dance for me, as otherwise I should have been on the 
outside of the jollity — ^none of the witticisms which 
provoked so much laughter being interpreted to me. I 
thought perhaps my friends regarded them as too vulgar 
for the ears of a foreigner. 

The geisha is not an over-attractive personality. Her 
grace is too cramped, too limited. Her movements 
while dancing are extremely proper, according to code, 



. . . CAME A LITTLE GIRL 6i 

and seldom, if ever, rise to any terpsichorean liveliness as 
we know it. She turns about on the balls of her feet, 
kicking the trailing gowns outward, not immodestly, 
and manipulates a fan in definitely prescribed ways. 
The fan is the essence of the art, next to which in im- 
portance is the movement of the hands. Otherwise, 
neither the music nor the dance, per se, quicken my 
artistic sense to a thrill. 

They taught me a song. The melody was simple and 
so monotonous that it almost wearied me. But the 
words, when interpreted made me understand — and 
then I sang with them, and loved Japan in that song. 

Literally it is this : 

Iso de meisho wa Oharai Sama yo 
(By a famous beach, O Hara San) 

Matsu ga miyamasu honohonoto 
(Pine tree sees faintly) 

Matsu ga miyamasu iso iso honohonoto. 
(Pine tree sees blithesome faintly). 

They seemed to be drunk with the very repetition of the 
song. To me it was but a translation, and I could see 
the picture it presented. But they sang it over and 
over again, taught it to me with a patience which was 
either childish or sublime — that is, either without under- 
standing or with a sense of the oneness of the universe, 
almost as though it were a prayer. They repeated it 
over and over again, and it was the only song sung that 
evening with any interest. It seemed to be part of them 
and to emanate as the perfume from the rose, as color 
from a simset. 

We were absorbed in this song. The girl who took 
it upon herself to instruct me was most vivacious and 
attractive. I almost forgot my surroundings, and paid 
no attention to those coming or going. Suddenly, into 



62 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

the monotony of the dancing and the singing came a 
Httle girl. She was just fourteen. Her silks and em- 
broideries were fabulous, and the artificially white skin 
was solid and fresh. She was a tiny little thing, and 
should be forgiven if the gorgeous raiment made her 
think of herself and feel happy. She came in with the 
usual bow, sat down quietly, but the gaze of every one 
of us was instantly upon her, and the faces of the other 
geisha showed both satisfaction and envy. The dear 
little thing felt happy, and yet dared not give expression 
to that happiness. So that every little while a smile 
would turn on her lips and contract or be suppressed. 
She was happy, but still it must have hurt her not to be 
able to be happy girlishly. 

Six months or more later I met her at another geisha 
party. She didn't recognize me, but finally recalled 
the evening. But what a change ! She was already the 
favorite of a foreigner, with all the tricks and self- 
conscious indifference of her profession. 

One evening Mr. Suzuki and I decided to go to see 
more of geisha life. I could see that his wife didn't 
approve of it, but he was master and no argument was 
necessary. The geisha takes the place of the club, and 
no woman will dare deny that to her husband. The 
geisha is not his companion — she is merely a specialist 
in the entertainment of men. The wife entertains him 
at home, the geisha abroad; and if he wants a concubine 
or two, there is no law prohibiting it. The present 
Emperor is the first to have adopted monogamy, but 
his father had five wives, himself the son by a side-wife, 
the Lady Yanagiwara. 

We moved along through the vast crowd which had 
swarmed the streets on its way to a temple, and took 
to a back street or roadway along the bank of the 
Minatogawa. There were neither lights nor pavements, 
and the dust raised by the scraping of the geta (clogs) 




GEISHA ARE INDISPENSABLE TO A MAN S ENJOYMENT OF CHERRY-BLOSSOMS 




NOWHERE WAS A BELATED ARMISTICE CELEBRATED LIKE THIS 




BEERU, STEAMING RICE, AND MAID AS HOPEFUL AS THE PLUM-BLOSSOM 




NOT THE OUTER SHAPE, BUT THE POSSIBH^ITIES, MAKE THESE TEA-HOUSES 



AN EIGHTY PER CENT BEAUTY 6^ 

was distressing. The dark, starlit night did not min- 
ister to the dehcacy of Japanese atmosphere; only the 
strangeness was real. 

We dropped down among the shacks, the dirty, ratty 
places, wandered through narrow alleys amid squalor 
and poverty. Not our kind of poverty, though — not so 
degraded, but more primitive. In Japan poverty does 
not arouse so much sympathy, because it is not so 
definitely below the general condition. It is so common 
that we take no more notice of it than of a poor horse or 
cow. 

Farther on we were in alleys lined with cleaner, better, 
and more luxurious houses. This is where the geisha 
live. They have no homes, for a Japanese could not be 
gay in the presence of his parents or the parents of a 
geisha. The parents being older, he would have to sit 
still and be sober. Consequently the geisha have 
their own quarters. The proprietors of these houses 
are all "respectable." They look after the girls with 
law-abiding interest. 

When we found the appointed place, we entered. 
The clean, somewhat charming old woman brought out 
sheets of paper on which the names of at least eight 
hundred girls were printed. When a girl is hired, a 
hole is punched with a toothpick over her name; when 
she returns, a hole is punched beneath it. The girls are 
ordered from a central office, where a strict register is 
kept of their movements. To wander over to one of 
these offices reminds one of a miniature stock-exchange. 
The atmosphere of intense activity, of the passing of 
great possessions from one to another, makes of it the 
most lively place in the quarters. 

When the girls my friend favored arrived, we were well 

into the feast. The normal length of a Japanese meal is 

about three and a half hours. I sat with my friends, 

watching the meat and the greens sizzling on the brazier, 
5 



64 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

eating little pieces at set intervals. It was tantalizing. 
I could have devoured the whole of it post-haste, but 
had to wait each time for some one to take a chopstick- 
ful first. It was a delicious torture, for each mouthful 
was worth the waiting for. Sukiyaki, it is called, which 
means ' ' enj oyable fry. ' ' 

Six geisha came in and sat. . . . Two of them talked, 
and my stammering Japanese formed part of the amuse- 
ment, if not all; but there was no dancing, playing, or 
singing. What they were being paid for under these 
circumstances I could not tell. It only indicated the 
real evil of the geisha habit. They were neither friends 
nor entertainers, just simply parasites, or — let us give 
them some place in life — wallflowers. 

My friend asked what I thought of their looks; I 
indicated which I considered the prettiest. No, that 
was not his choice. "The one to my right," he said, 
"forty-five per cent; the next, thirty-five per cent; then 
fifty-five per cent [the one I had indicated], and lastly, 
seventy-five per cent." That is the quaint way they 
have of passing judgment on women. Later on, an- 
other girl came in. Indeed, she was the best and we 
assessed her at eighty per cent. She was not a beauty, 
being a little too stout, but she had charm and character 
and "go." She did everything, some things a little vul- 
garly, some charmingly, and some revealing training and 
education. She was the favorite. She liked foreigners, 
knew a few words of English, and kept the lot of us in a 
merry mood. What the main topic of conversation was, 
however, I never knew. Japanese are most exasperating 
in this, for they will carry on miles of conversation even 
about yourself, without as much as attempting to bring 
you into the affair. You simply have to extract an 
interpretation, so shy and evasive are they. 

Thus another four hours of life passed on. It was not 
a bore, yet certainly not interesting. It cost us thirty 



PLAYING SAMURAI 65 

yen, five dollars each, dozens of bottles of aerated water 
and beer, food and fruit, jokes and laughter. One girl 
played the violin — an altogether new thing in Japan — 
but one other didn't so much as make a remark all even- 
ing. Yet this is what is in so great demand in Japan, so 
much so that one must employ these girls days ahead of 
time if one is to have any choice at all. And thus is 
man's sanity secured. 

I had expressed an interest in the historical phase of 
this life which reminded my friend that he could show 
me what life in old Japan had been like in a vivid way. 
So a few weeks later he called upon me again and 
asked if I would come out for the evening. This 
time it was distant from the usual geisha quarters, off 
from the old road which before the coming of the foreign- 
ers had been the main street of Hyogo — Kobe's parent 
city. Even after the coming of the white man, this 
road had played its dramatic part, for, to avoid passing 
the hated foreign settlement, the samurai and daimyo 
had taken to traveling to Kyoto by turning northward 
and cutting through the hills over what is now known 
as Arima-michi (Arima highway). To this hidden inn 
along Arima-michi we went that evening. 

Besides dancing and singing and now more friendly 
intimacy, the proprietor brought out her store of ancient 
possessions which she keeps for just such occasions. 
Japanese who wish to play sam.urai, or ancient noble- 
men, can here satisfy their desires. We regaled ourselves 
in these old-time costumes and acted scenes and samurai 
practices so romantic to them. Thus for a few moments 
I was a Chinese patriarch, and then a powerful shogun 
in glittering gowns with a tiny little wife to follow me and 
obey. Every one paid me the respect due a superior. 
My friend was a valiant samurai dressed in weighty 
armor. He depicted a departure for war, the scene be- 
tween himself and his sweetheart, their marriage, and the 



66 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sad moments of parting. They acted as though bom to 
it; not, however, without a conscious show of ridicule. 

Sake began to flow and all became cheerful. Even the 
old woman, the proprietor's wife, imbibed freely at her 
guests' expense. She was soon quite gay and avowed 
most emphatically that she loved me. Her old husband 
finally came in and good-naturedly picked her up and 
carried her out of the room. His kindliness completely 
whitewashed her helpless coarseness. 

The 8o-per-cent geisha of the previous party was 
present. Her name — that is, her geisha name — was 
Tamosabura. She was dark-complexioned and left 
herself so. She did not paint. She was twenty-five, and 
admitted it. She was the most intelligent and had the 
finest character, but hid it. And when I was just about 
to forget that she was a geisha she would make some 
suggestive remark which made me wish men did not have 
to be made "happy" and girls subjected to a training in 
subtleties to achieve it for them. 

She affected a great liking for me, but I am sure she 
didn't even dislike me — a red devil of a foreigner. She 
pretended to be happy, but she was not sad. She was 
slightly curious about me, yet mocked me. I struggled 
to learn Japanese, a language the value of the usage 
of which was a vague possibility to me wrapped in a 
mantle of promise. She learned a few EngHsh words 
and showed her contempt for the language by using 
them to amuse the illiterate and the simple-minded. 

She rose to go. It was half past ten, but she said she 
had to keep another engagement. In putting away her 
samisen (the Japanese guitar which has no music in it) 
the others came to her assistance. My attention was 
called to this. It was a show of courtesy to which she, 
as a superior, was entitled. And with more sweep and 
motion than is common with most Japanese women, she 
slipped out of the door. 



REFLECTIONS IN A RICKSHAW (^7 

Things fell flat after that, though we did not leave till 
one in the morning. There was then neither tram nor 
rickshaw. The concern for my safety all of them mani- 
fested was indeed remarkable. The girls were most 
considerate and kindly, a loveliness in feminine charac- 
ter which always wins western men's sympathies. One 
woman went ahead and presently returned with a 
kuruma. With a kurumaya san they would trust me 
to arrive unharmed. 

My way lay through one of the outer regions of the 
city. Through the narrow little byways of Hyogo my 
sturdy rickshaw man bore me. There was so much 
blackness round about that this trustworthy coolie 
shone with human radiance. Alone, it might not have 
been altogether well for me to wander away out here. 
With him, panting and shifting the place of the shafts, I 
rode with delight and composure. The electric lights at 
every gate seemed sleepy within their nooks and corners. 

I had time and ease in which to reflect on the night 
and its experiences. One certainly grows to love these 
people with a melancholy love. They are not ugly, I 
thought, but certainly not beautiful; they are not sad, 
but certainly not happy; they are not prim, but cer- 
tainly not free; they are not refined, but certainly not 
vulgar. What are they, then? They are geisha, the 
product of a feudalism in which a man might do anything 
he pleased, aside from real thinking. They are a special- 
ized institution. Though the geisha may easily be a 
libertine in her profession, still I have yet to see her 
nightly employer take any public liberties with her 
though prostitute she may be. Hired for the occasion, 
to satisfy the pleasure-seeking, she still maintains her 
dignity. Whatever her morals, in appearance she is the 
most circumspect individual in the world. It is to the 
credit of Japanese unmorality that, using their women, 
they do not torture them as does the West. 



68 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Japanese have no women friends, only wives, servants, 
geisha and prostitutes. Whereas we would not think 
of going out for an evening's pleasure without our 
girl friends, here the presence of women must be paid 
for, though they do nothing at all to earn their fees. And 
back home, my friend's little wife and servant were sit- 
ting up for him, for she told me that on all occasions she 
remains up till he comes, and would not sleep through 
the night should he remain away. 

Seven o'clock the next night. Drooping with the 
somewhat solemn evening are the low-hanging clouds 
of a day's rain. The white breakers gnaw the distant 
point of land ; and the wind, like a giant tongue, laps the 
mouthlike group of hills. 

It is the same tale the world over, only in a somewhat 
different setting from that of the geisha. The tale of 
the prostitute. In old Japan she was regarded as much 
a part of the community as any woman. And as late as 
1 91 8, in Kobe, and even to this day in Yokohama and 
a few other places, she was exposed without compunc- 
tion to the public. She was kept in what are called 
restricted districts, but that word does not refer to what 
goes on in them. It is in the heart of the city, next-door 
neighbor to the geisha quarters. There is no singing 
and playing of the guitar as in the latter district, but 
there is no dearth of noise or of general activity. The 
streets are lighted up to the third story. Men, women, 
and children, who are not themselves part of, but are 
party to the district, abound. Their homes are there, 
and they are part of the system only in so far as they 
earn their living by supplying rice and drink to the 
sprightly. The street is unusually wide; shrubs grow 
in plots between. By about seven or seven-thirty, no 
matter how threatening the sky above, Hfe here begins 
to glow. Entering the first dark door over which 



HUMAN CAGES 69 

striped curtains dangle in the wind, you find some men 
or women sitting on benches or chairs. They will im- 
mediately advance upon you, urging you to patronize 
their establishment and telling you at what price. To 
the right or to the left is a well-lighted room open to 
view but for three-quarter-inch wooden strips set about 
an inch apart. They are usually stained brown. With- 
in, in brilliant light, sit anywhere from six to two dozen 
girls, clothed in brilliantly colored kimonos, painting, 
powdering, making themselves up for the night. They 
are coarse, they are ugly, fat, unsightly, and the powder 
and paint make them still more unsightly. But that 
does not seem to matter. The semicircle they generally 
form at the farthest end of the room is every once in a 
while broken — a girl temporarily absent. There they 
sit, however, receive insulting remarks without squirm- 
ing, show themselves pleased when accepted — but seldom 
make any effort themselves to induce patronage. 

The odd part of it is that they, and not the men, should 
be in the cages. Within the darkened hallway hilarious, 
boisterous men come in and go out, searching from 
house to house for girls to their liking. And one could 
follow them all along the street on the left, come back 
up again on the right, turn off into the narrower street 
to the right — go where one will within this district, and 
the same cages, the same women, the same conditions 
abound — because of the law. 

It is legalized in Japan, and though latterly the 
exhibition of girls has been stopped in Kobe and Osaka, 
and enlarged portraits substituted, the traffic goes on 
just as much. Yet crude and horrible as the cages are, 
and cruel, the practice is not so dangerous to the com- 
munity nor so disgusting as our street-walkers. During 
my years in Japan I recall being approached by women 
on the streets only three times, and in all Japan I have 
yet to come across licentiousness that is not mere prosti- 



70 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

tution and that cannot be found as readily in every other 
country in the world. 

One soon tires of the geisha and their accomplish- 
ments, but the resident in Japan soon learns to endure 
with unpatient resignation these Oriental amenities. 
For it is indeed a matter of looking for a square egg if 
one tries to find a place without them. Even should 
one keep entirely away from their quarters and the tea- 
houses, the nights are so full with their shouting and 
playing that, willy-nilly, one has them with him. And 
when the summer comes, or during plum-blossom or 
cherry-blossom viewing, the tumult drifts into the public 
parks — and then one must indeed say farewell to peace. 

It was while trying to avoid one such place that a 
friend of mine and I turned down the street toward the 
slums and the factories, instead of taking to the upper 
paths along the hill. The houses were monotonously 
regular, dirty, and poor, their only virtue being that 
they were low and permitted an almost unobstructed 
view of the hills above. Occasionally the landscape 
opened, disclosing a glimpse of the sea, like the carelessly 
closed kimono which often affords a peep at the Japanese 
woman's breasts. 

When we reached the foot of the hills we turned to the 
left because the way to the right was so prohibitive. 
The factories with their green and brown gaseous smoke 
were too much for us. We had not gone very far when 
we came upon some buildings which puzzled us. They 
looked like barracks or prisons, yet we knew they could 
be neither. The window openings were about two feet 
square, closed with thin strips pasted over with paper. 
We were discoursing somewhat generally upon the 
materialism of modem Japan when a voice, coarse yet 
sweet, rang out from the nearest aperture. It made us 
stop and look each other in the face. Something drew 



THE DARK VAULTS OF NADA 71 

us close to each other, as though the whole of that 
which is loveliest in all Japan had enveloped us. It was 
immediately followed by a chorus of voices unutter- 
ably sweet and wholesome. Our curiosity became 
irresistible. The lure was so great that we decided to 
find out what these men were doing. 

Entering by way of an open gate in the high board 
fence, we came into a yard of picturesque simplicity. 
In the comer was a deep well over which stood the old- 
fashioned well-sweep, for all the world just as it must 
have stood in the days of the patriarchs. Upon a ledge 
stood a Japanese, bringing the water up as rapidly as 
possible and pouring it into the buckets of another. 
That other, when his two pails were full, shouldered 
them on his yoke and with a jerky, swinging gait passed 
on into the darkened building beyond. The life was so 
primitive, the atmosphere so sober, we felt we had sud- 
denly slipped out of the modem rush of new Japan into 
something we shall probably find at the other end of 
time when man arrives. Tremendous tubs, eight feet 
in diameter, lay about the yards, wheel after wheel of 
them. Omar's request that we turn down *'an empty 
glass" was here but half complied with: these were 
empty, but on their sides, waiting to be turned up again. 
One man picked up a single bucket of water and strolled 
across the scene as it is said men did in Rachel's days. 
And the bamboo pole see-sawed its way between heaven 
and the dark depths of the well, awaking visions of 
eastern life now hardly Oriental. 

From this outer yard the doors stood wide into the 
dungeon-like 5a^^-cellars, for we were in a 5a^^-brewing 
establishment. Here the tremendous tubs stood upright, 
six and seven feet high. The sweet-scented sake bubbled 
with ferment; and in and about the tubs moved the 
men, overgrown dwarfs of a raised underworld. 

It seemed for a moment that our coming had broken 



72 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

the charm, and they would not sing again. For the first 
time necessity seemed to me a spiritual parent instead 
of an earthly one. They had to stir their tubs, and habit 
was too closely allied to birth to be interrupted long by a 
mere visitation of strange foreigners. Slowly they re- 
verted to song and labor. As they stood on the rims of 
the monstrous tubs, their staffs sunk into the thick, white, 
foaming rice brew, they symbolized living monuments of 
contentment stirring the cups of forgetfulness for the 
world. 

Then one led off, and his voice rang out clear in that 
darkened vault — clear as the thin rays of light which 
entered through the cracks in the paper windows. The 
other three men took up the strains, and then they fol- 
lowed one another in perfect rhythm, to which they kept 
time by beating with their staff -mixers on the bottoms. 
The hands holding the staffs shot out full length and came 
down on the bottom with a gentle thud, were drawn in 
and raised again, one after the other, not a fraction of a 
second out of time. The song needed no words of ex- 
planation. The paper apertures threw little light on 
any details. Songs without words, and atmosphere 
without trifles — and for a moment a world without 
progress. Simple folk whose hearts are free from affecta- 
tion can make their untrained voices the envy of great 
singers, and their wooden tools the peer of instruments. 
It was as though all that is lovely in human aspiration 
were being held firm to reality by the thud of a staff. 
Relief from progress and striving is a thrilling intox- 
icant; whether one chooses whisky or mere illusion, the 
result is all the same. Whenever I think back to my 
days in Japan I always feel the contrast between the vul- 
garities of the 5a^^-drinking, idle Japanese and the love- 
liness of these happy toilers there in the dark vaults of 
Nada. 




I BECOME A HOUSEHOLDER 

|OMES the world over are as telescopes through 
which an observer may look out upon life, 
and of no country I have ever been to is 
that more true than of Japan. But the 
homes in Japan are the dark chambers of 
these instruments to the foreigner, for seldom does he 
get a chance to see into them. In fact, this is admitted 
by even the best-traveled Japanese, and almost as 
though that seclusiveness were worthy of pride. My 
efforts, though they helped me to understand the work- 
ings of the Japanese mind, were not crowned with 
complete success till I got a home of my own. The 
circumstances which forced the change upon me were 
these. 

One day the housekeeper failed to appear at my meal- 
time. Oteru San, the maid, said she was weeping be- 
cause she had had a fight with her husband. Her own 
story to me was that she had received news of her 
father's death. But I noticed that thenceforward a 
woman moved about the house, and none so meek but 
that she would do him reverence. She spoke gently 
and in a loving manner. I cannot guarantee, however, 
that in making up she and her husband kissed. But 
there seemed little doubt that she had put whatever 
modernism had adorned the fringes of her temper upon 
the shelf. And all that sweetness of resignation and 
reserve which slept within the lap of her female ancestry 



74 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

has found its ancient resting-place again. Cursed be 
the thought of any further violence or self-will ever 
frightening that sobriety into action. Peace, peace, of 
a punished variety thereafter lay quite meekly in the 
lap of our boarding-house domesticity. 

And the strong, forgiving husband permitted a night 
out at the moving pictures, washed the rice and dishes, 
nor deigned not to humble himself in the "unmanly" 
act of mopping the dust from the hallway floors. 

Peace reigneth in our household! Buddha and our 
ancestors be praised! 

When it is considered that Hayashi San was not legally 
married to Yamato San (as is often the case in Japan) 
his kindliness and consideration of her were remarkable. 
He could have left her at a moment's notice. Of course, 
he might have had to pay her a sum of money. But he 
did not leave her, and in the eight months during which 
I roomed at the house they had had but one quarrel. 
She got the worst of it, but she was a selfish, vain person. 
He was even content to be called by her name, because 
she ran the house, and everybody called her to account. 

But there is a longer story than that. It was dull in 
the house those days. A tragedy was working itself out, 
and the figure of the housekeeper was in the center of 
the stage. One morning she stood bent over the basin, 
washing her face. She did not turn and smile as was 
her wont, but slipped down the stairs without once 
turning to bid me good morning. As her figure de- 
scended the steep stairway it seemed to me she dipped 
into the darkness of despair. 

For some months past she had been very frequently 
ill. ''Kutabiremashita,'' she wonld always say. "Merely 
tired." She was always tired; more and more fre- 
quently tired. Then headaches. One day the two 
servants were treating her. One was lighting punk and 
depositing the burning stuff on her bare back. Then 



ONE OUT OF TEN 75 

the two commenced pounding vigorously. A cure. I 
had often wondered why so many Japanese have scars 
like vaccination-marks all over them. But the case went 
farther. Numerous medicines began to be seen about. 

It is like this. There were ten people living in the 
house, and she was but one. Statisticians tell us that 
one out of every ten people has it. One out of every 
ten masses itself into staggering figures when they are 
withdrawn from the flood of human life. But terrible 
as that is, it is nothing at all compared with the one 
you meet who has it. That one, single and alone, 
throws a shadow over life; that one, single and isolated, 
leaves in lonely gloom that thing we all preserve so 
ardently — life. It is but one life, but to see it lonely, 
trying to re-establish itself against such odds, is terrible. 

Yet, all the time, while she knew she had syphilis, and 
had had several injections of 606 in its milder Japanese 
form, she went on washing in the same public basin, 
eating out of the same dishes as the rest of them. I, 
being a foreigner, had had my own basin and dishes. 
The disease is spreading in Japan because the people are 
so careless. Everybody in the house knew, yet that did 
not seem to affect their attitude toward her, nor did 
they demand any special care. One day I looked down 
into the kitchen and saw her wash her eyes with the 
medicine, wipe her fingers on her apron, and immediately 
turn to the rice-bowl in which the whole day's portion 
was cooking. It was a strange situation. To have at- 
tempted to force her into isolation would have driven 
her to secrecy. That is only too frequently the case in 
that doctor-fearing country. Yet, though the Japanese 
attitude is indeed much less cruel, the indifference 
certainly exposes others. 

The mystery grew. "How is it that she, a married 
woman, should have got the disease?" I asked my neigh- 
bor, knowing how universally true it is that there is no 



jG JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

more faithful creature in the world than the Japanese mar- 
ried woman. And then I learned that she had once been 
one of the girls in the Kobe cages. She was still good- 
looking, but a little too old for the profession. Yet the 
remarkable thing to me was that, her illness notwith- 
standing, and its expense, her husband, boimd to her 
by no legal ties, did not desert her. They were kindly 
to each other and seemed quite happy. 

My neighbor had a quarrel with her one evening and 
she commenced to cry. She took his advice and went 
to her relatives in the country for a day or so, to decide 
what her future course should be. Shortly afterward 
we were all told the house had been taken over by a 
Japanese narikin firm as a boarding-house for their em- 
ployees, and we all had to vacate it. 

The housekeeper and her husband rented a house 
farther down the hill and were anxious to have us come 
along. But none of us would have remained as long as 
we did had it not been for the splendid location of the 
house, its fine rooms and attractive view. A year or so 
later I met them both ambling down the street. They 
seemed to have grown more stodgy, but were just as 
happy with each other. 

Being thus precipitately cast out into the moving 
world again, I was at a loss as to whether to pry some- 
what deeper into that phase of Japanese life or take 
advantage of the opportunity to climb a step higher in 
the social scale. Several things were against the pros- 
pect of getting a house of my own — the servant problem 
and the problem of theft. I had had little to do with 
either the servant or the thief, and was as much afraid 
of the one as the other. This is more than mere timidity 
on my part. Every foreigner is forced to face that issue 
in Japan as soon as he becomes a householder. In the 
first place, there are plenty of servants to be had at a 
very reasonable wage, but it doesn't stop there. To 



HOUSE HUNTING ^^ 

get an unreliable one means to put your possessions in 
jeopardy and to submit to a weekly ''squeeze." One 
young foreigner found that, without being much of a 
drinker himself, he was constantly running dry and his 
groceries were always twice as much as others paid for 
them. The other thing is that Japanese houses are so 
frail, and without locks; consequently, no one would 
ever think of leaving them unguarded for a moment. 
But I determined to tempt fate and put myself under 
the wings of the Japanese police. 

The next thing was to find a house. I wandered all 
over Kobe trying to find one. Time was when, had the 
rumor gone round that a foreigner wanted to rent a house, 
he would have been in danger of being scrambled over 
by landlords. But that time had gone, as have a good 
many other things with the war. Now I was the insig- 
nificant white man looking for shelter. I discovered, 
first of all, that there is an objection to renting houses to 
foreigners because they don't like to take off their shoes 
before entering, and are careless with the mats. Now 
the most expensive things about a Japanese house are 
the mats. They cost from one dollar to two dollars 
apiece, and there are from four to ten to a room, 
and since they are of material which wears out quickly 
and can't be washed when dirty, special care must be 
given them. Naturally, a landlord has to reckon that 
into his cost and rent. Secondly, the business boom in 
Kobe had been so great, industrialism had drawn so 
many people to the port from other cities and from off 
the farms, that there wasn't a house to spare. To 
make the situation more difficult, the cost of labor and 
material had doubled and people were waiting before 
attempting to supply the demand. Rent began to go 
sky high. Into this situation I plunged as a prospective 
householder. I trudged the dusty streets in the glaring- 
hot sun for days and days without success. I was told 



78 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

to look for * ' To Let ' ' signs on houses. That is an oblong 
piece of white paper, of the thin rice-paper kind, stuck 
upon the walls or shutters. They are never stuck up 
erect, but always standing on a comer. The reason for 
this is that the oblong thus placed when cut in half re- 
sembles the Chinese character for the word welcome, or 
please come in. And, naturally, every landlord wants 
the prospective tenant to come in. But houses were so 
few and far between that I was soon forced to give up 
my quest. The next thing was to approach the head 
daikusan (carpenter) and ask in my best Japanese, 
''Kashiya desukaf ("Is this unfinished house for rent ?") 
In most cases it was already spoken for. And so the 
weary days dragged on. Even every plot of ground 
upon which timber lay in preparation of a building was 
spoken for. The best I could do was to become a boarder 
again in a different kind of a boarding-house — one run 
by Japanese for foreigners on their plan. It was run — 
and it ran everybody into distemper. Insult and im- 
pudence were more generously dispensed than service. 
But I was compelled to endure it, for though I had, by a 
happy chance, nm across just the kind of house I 
wanted, it was still being built. 

But that was only the beginning of my troubles. 
Every day I would wander out to see how the house 
was progressing. First the roof was finished. Then 
day after day I would watch it, and each time it seemed 
to me that only another length to the framework had 
been added. Finally I saw the floor of the little balcony 
finished. Then the alcove was done. At last, after 
being told from day to day that to-morrow or the day 
after the house would be completed, until these to- 
morrows had accumulated into a full four weeks, the 
woodwork was actually finished. Then came the matter 
of plaster. A typhoon came on and blew the city into 
disorder. The rain had made the roads too muddy. 




THREE ROOMS AND A KITCHEN WITH A FENCE ALL THE WAY ROUND 




NOTHING ESCAPES EVICTION ON THE HONORABLE CLEANING-DAY 




FOR EVERY WRINKLE A CHILD — BUT SHE IS LEARNING 




THE MICROSCOPE WOULD REVEAL THOUSANDS LIKE HER HERE 



MY ''TEN FOOT SQUARE" HOUSE 79 

The plasterers could not haul their brown mud down 
from the hills. And so for days the house stood there, 
complete all but for the fact that the walls were still 
merely bamboo strips woven across one another, and 
nothing more. Then, after daily journeys and quarrels 
with the landlord — a Japanese Christian — I provoked 
him to forcing the mud men to bring the mud, and the 
plasterers to plaster the house. Thus, fully six weeks 
later than the day on which I had been promised oc- 
cupancy, I moved into my house. Two things still 
remained unsettled. One was the plaster, which simply 
would not dry out — I burned gallons of kerosene-oil 
trying to help it to do so. The other was the matter of 
the rent. Every time I expressed any enthusiasm about 
the house my Christian landlord jumped the rent on me. 
First it was to be $7.50 a month; then it became $8; 
and finally $9. Had I been compelled to wait much 
longer I feel sure it would have become $10. Now that 
is not the usual rent for a Japanese house, and so I must 
immediately describe it, lest Americans rush to Japan 
under the illusion that rent there is cheap. My 
house was a three-room house and a kitchen. Speak- 
ing in Japanese terms, it was a twelve-and-a-half -mat 
house, or in feet and inches measured, from wall to wall, 
1 2 by 2 1 by 8 feet from floor to ceiling. My study was 
the pride of my heart. 

Thus, for the first time in Japan I felt settled. I 
had found a house ; I had found a servant. I was alone, 
as I wanted to be all my life. I had found my little 
Hojo-an, literally, my ten-foot-square house. The ex- 
periences of becoming a householder in Japan are too 
flitting to be incorporated in such a work as this, except 
as they were actually written at the time. So I shall 
fall back on some extracts from my diary for the re- 
mainder of this section : 

I am in my little Hojo-an. The doors are all shut, the 
6 



8o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

servant has gone to town. Not a sound to disturb my 
peace of mind — and a certain coziness, immeasurably 
restful. To-night I am in my own home, happier, with- 
out thrilling happiness, than at any time in years. It 
is a strange sort of satisfaction for a wanderer to find his 
home. I come and go as I please; I can always find some 
one here, my meals prepared, and a happy retreat. I 
thought, just as I sat down to write, Japan had never 
been seen to be so lovely as it then seemed to me. 

Yet it is nothing to brag of. It has no garden to 
speak of, for in these days Japan is economizing in gar- 
dens. But from my little veranda I can still view the 
sea, hazed as it is by smoke from innumerable factories, 
steel- works, and dockyards. My study is four and a 
half mats (nine by nine feet) with karakami (paper 
doors) on two sides, and shoji (paper doors) opening on 
the porch. My bedroom is just half a mat smaller, 
with a touch of modernism in the way of a casement 
window taken from some wrecked foreign house. My 
landlord, a teacher of English in one of the mission 
schools, impressed that upon me as a special feature. 
Don't run away with the belief that he was urging me 
to rent the place. No such humbleness now! Every 
time I made any over-emphatic point of the stupid 
delay he assured me I needn't take it, or hinted that 
three people had asked him for it that very day. 

To return to the real character of the house — its new- 
ness, cleanliness, and the quiet. It is simplicity itself; 
no superfluous space or possessions, and, what is best, it 
gives me a place in the community. 

My servant is an elderly woman, a little too worked 
out for a big house. For months I had been dreaming 
of a little house in which I could be master without 
enslaving others, or interfering or being interfered with. 
I am master of a servant who says she will mother 
me, and when I don't like the way she does a thing I 



MY NEIGHBORHOOD 8i 

simply do it in my own way and accomplish by ex- 
ample, indirectly, that which I should fail to do were I 
to order it. 

I do not go the full length Chomei, the hermit saint of 
Hiei-san, did. I do not believe in self-torture. I love 
simplicity and quiet to a degree, but must have nice 
things, comfortable chairs and a desk, plenty of books 
and pictures. I love modem things when they are re- 
fined and chaste; and I should be as unhappy in Cho- 
mei 's beggarliness or Thoreau's scantiness as in the 
narikin's luxury. I sleep on the mats and go about in 
my stocking feet. 

October 29th. Had a quarrel with my landlord this 
morning, and it should have ended badly but that I 
more or less "called his bluff." That is, I told him not 
to expect me to rebuild his house for him. Whenever I 
suggested that something had not been done properly, 
he wanted me to get a carpenter to mend it. But that is 
of no moment, for the easiest thing in the world is to 
quarrel and say mean things and feel proud of it. The 
thing that counts is that, when I returned later, his wife 
was here and asked if she could wax the runners of my 
karakami. I said my cook would do that, but she in- 
sisted. She was on her knees, about to commence, when 
I stepped up, and she put her arm around my legs, 
explaining that her husband is much troubled over the 
incident. How broad the gap is between the men and 
women, and how far apart the extremes of their charac- 
ter! Either proud and stiff to unbearableness or meek 
and humble to humility. It was indeed touching to 
have this old woman tell in such sincere acts that which 
words with us could not have done; for wasn't it the 
inability to give proper wording to our requirements 
that precipitated the little misunderstanding? 

It is the typical Japanese neighborhood. An ordinary 
dirt road — impaved — along which stand rows and rows 



82 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

of houses each perched upon a cut-stone terrace, and 
surrounded by a six-foot board fence or plastered wall. 
Within are the gardens. It is in the midst of the nankin 
homes, most of them unusually well built. Across the 
way, I learn, is the home of a sea-captain. He has a 
most charming daughter, in every sense of the word a 
beauty, but she is too small, even for a Japanese. Here 
is the home of a millionaire who, two years ago, was a 
junkman. It is half foreign and half Japanese. The 
foreign section is as lacking in softness or taste as the 
iron scraps the picking of which gave him his fortune. 
Two years ago he was earning a yen fifty a day. 

In the house behind us my servant has discovered a 
countrywoman of hers — come from the same town in 
Shikoku. So that every evening, as soon as she has 
washed the dishes and set things straight, she slips out 
and spends the time chatting and laughing. 

Everywhere around me I can hear the sounds of 
laughter, the melancholy music of the fuCy the Japanese 
flute, and the constant tramping of feet. Commercial- 
school students pass by the himdreds along the street, 
and even quite a number of little foreign children come 
by on their way to their academy. I find my name upon 
the gate causes too much astonishment. Never a 
Japanese passes without gazing and reading the name 
on the gate. ''Seiyojin'' immediately issues from their 
lips. Yes, I know I am a foreigner. What of it? At 
last I take down the sign; it is too public and I am too 
near the road. I notice that Japanese much more than 
foreigners are inclined to gaze curiously into their neigh- 
bors' houses as they walk along the street. The for- 
eigner is too bent upon his goal to have much time for 
idle gazing. 

I have more immediate difficulties. Farmers are 
becoming too independent and won't bring vegetables 
round to your door as they used to. The charcoal-man 



STANDARDIZATION 8j 

treats you well enough, but the price of charcoal is rising 
every week. The laundryman comes, but comes irregu- 
larly. But, thank goodness, I have a reliable servant. 

Thus, from being a mere casual observer of the outer 
phases of Japanese life, I am forced to give attention to 
details, to organize my knowledge and to come in con- 
tact with the currents of trade which is life the world 
over. I begin to note certain social customs and urban 
sanctions which bind and. twine these beings one to the 
other — to reach out to the length and breadth of all the 
Empire. 

For, though I have a servant, still a man must go shop- 
ping if he is to get any satisfaction for his money. One 
often hears that real insight into home life in Japan is 
denied the foreigner, and that is, socially speaking, true. 
But still it is the easiest thing in the world to see into the 
homes of the tradespeople and the working-class, for 
from the interior to the street there is little to obstruct 
the observation of him who will. Fact is, almost all the 
home life is lived in the front of the building, which is the 
shop, and the pouring out upon the street is like to that 
of their wares. Street selling is still common in Japan, 
largely on account of the openness of Japanese houses 
and the lack of locks strong enough to keep out intruders. 
Consequently women are practically confined to their 
homes. But it is different with the tradespeople. In 
their shops and stores the whole household is grouped 
about the brazier, and whatever of home life there is, 
except the sleeping and eating, may be seen from the 
street. 

I wandered about all over town one day, trying to find 
a locksmith to make a key for a chest of drawers. But 
though I inquired in half a dozen hardware stores and 
as many other places, no one would undertake the 
job. Exasperated as I was, I saw that this indicates 
as much the keylessness and locklessness of Japan as it 



84 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

does its business indolence. No mechanic or locksmith 
could earn a living in a country where bolts and bars are 
a negligible quantity. Cheap labor means servants to 
watch the houses — then why have locks? The door to 
one hardware shop swung outward, and the lock, instead 
of being an example of the shopkeeper's artisanship, was 
placed on backward and had to be drawn in by the 
handle when closing, and simply pushed out when open- 
ing. No one would bother with me in my seeking. I 
had to secure the help of a friend before I found a willing 
smith. He offered to fit a key for fifteen sen, but wanted 
two days in which to finish it. He was an honest man, but 
his key turned like a piece of tin the first time I inserted 
it in the lock. 

My servant told me that she constantly whispered to 
grocery boys and dealers the fact that my doors were well 
bolted from within. She thought it good advertisement 
and would tend to keep thieves away from the place. 

I wanted to buy some cushions for my prospective 
Japanese guests to sit upon, but discovered that I would 
have to buy a complete set of four or six, all of the same 
pattern. I could not find a place willing to sell me one 
alone. 

I wanted to buy glass doors for my veranda, but foimd 
that they were made only according to given size. I 
had the man give me an estimate of their cost, but 
because I didn't place the order forthwith he refused to 
make them for me a couple of days later. 

I went to buy a desk. It was delivered. I saw that 
the green-felt top had not been finished properly, the 
edges were not tucked in neatly. I asked the man to 
touch it up, but he said he couldn't. I pointed out that 
it was but the matter of a moment, that unless the ends 
were done properly I should not take the desk. He pre- 
ferred to take it back with him rather than satisfy me. 

I discovered that the electric lighting was all en bloc. 



OSOJI, OR HONORABLE CLEANING 85 

You paid a certain nominal sum for lighting and could 
bum it from the time it was turned on in the afternoon 
until it was turned off again in the morning. But even 
on early dark days you had to wait for the lights to be 
turned on. I asked for a meter, but found that the 
conditions did not suit my kind of house. I had to sub- 
mit to the standardization to which Japan bows so 
politely. 

Whatever I wanted, as a householder, I could get, but 
it had to be cut and dried according to the limited pat- 
terns and designs of the community. 

I discovered, too, that twice a year every house in 
Japan must turn itself inside out and prove to the world 
that it is clean. Then the effects are set out upon the 
road, the mats are raised and pounded, and all dishes 
must be washed in hot water. This rule holds good for 
business houses as well as private. The first time I 
passed down the main business street of Kobe — Moto- 
machi — I thought a fire had broken out; that if it 
hadn't, it was anticipated. But I could not account for 
the thick clouds of dust, the sound of mat-beating, the 
cloths tied across men's and women's mouths and noses. 
The street was littered, so that only a narrow haphazard 
pathway remained open, and even this was littered with 
debris. Passers-by held their handkerchiefs before their 
noses. Each store had its effects fenced in by the 
wooden shutters used to lock up at night. Yet now no 
one seemed to be watching lest thieves slip away with 
valuables. 

It was the plague - preventing campaign conducted 
twice a year. To see the piles of filth was enough to 
make you marvel any one's escape from plague. 

But the cleaning was done thoroughly. Policemen 
went about inspecting houses, and section by section 
the city was renovated — not excluding the wealthier 
residential districts. 



86 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Realizing that not to know what the standards are 
was to be cheated at every turn, I gave up shopping 
myself and turned it all over to my servant, thus pro- 
moting her to the status of housekeeper. Every day 
she would render account of her purchases, and I noticed 
that invariably she announced the sum of money first 
and then the article she had bought. But however much 
it seemed to me a topsy-turvy affair, I realized that if I 
wanted any peace at all it was better to let her look 
after that end herself. I didn't dare question a thing 
thereafter. Once I did, and nearly lost her, for she 
thought I was questioning her honesty. She shed tears. 
Whether she was really hurt by the insinuation or 
whether she was caught I was never able to determine, 
though she remained with me as long as I kept house. 
But I surrendered. After that I saw that I would gain 
nothing by meddling, and kept my hands off. Rather, 
I turned to observing the home life about me. 

My servant's friends above left the house. They had 
purchased a home of their own. It was an old house, 
this, and stood vacant for more than a month. Then 
came a new neighbor to gladden my lonely days. He 
spoke English, and that well, too. The day after he 
moved in he came round to my front door, introduced 
himself to me, and expressed himself most politely. 
We were to visit each other, he said. One evening he 
called across to me, at about eight o'clock: "May I come 
over? I am a little drunk to-night, but . . .'* Of 
course, I urged him to come. He came. His long, oval 
face and straight nose indicated his Yamato origin. He 
spoke intelligently, sake notwithstanding. A slightly 
shamed laugh, together with the odor of the brew, con- 
firmed his annoinicement. When I inquired if he would 
have some tea, he asked if he could have coffee instead. 
When I had the coffee served and set out to help him to 
it, he insisted he could help himself — and he did. Three 



A THREE O'CLOCK HUSBAND 87 

times he filled his cup, and every time it was drained 
quickly, and he asked for more, reaching to the pot. 
There was but a little left; he drained it, refusing to 
permit me to order more, with the explanatory remark: 
"I never leave anything. Gentlemen always say I 
never leave anything." I suggested that it must be 
Japanese custom. '*No, it's my way. I never leave 
anything.'* 

Poor devil. Poverty. It weighed upon him. **A11 
English and American peoples are rich. You, too, are 
rich. Yes, you are rich. Don't tell lies. Your parents 
are rich." 

"Did you see no poverty in America while you were 
there?" I asked. 

*'No, no poor people. All are rich. Japan, every- 
body poor. People all say and government say, Japan 
is great country. Not so great, I think. Not so great." 

Then he commenced urging me to come over next 
Sunday and insisted on knowing then and there what 
I wanted him to serve me with. He was not at all 
satisfied with my polite objection, but insisted four or 
five times, and again just before leaving. 

He told me who his roomers were. One man worked 
for Suzuki & Co., another for Sumitomo, and so on. The 
clan instinct is still alive in them. They cling to their 
bosses just as they did to their lords. 

He had a tiny little jaundiced-looking wife, with two 
babies. From one end of the day to the other, one or 
both of these two infants rent the air with their wailing. 
The poor little person must have been made of plain 
clay to have held together under that nervous strain. 

One evening my servant came in to my study, whis- 
pering that the wife was gone, and she didn't know where 
to. Then she said the husband was drunk and had 
beaten his wife; that she had slipped out upon the road 
with the youngest, and could not be found. Seeing that 



88 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

my sympathy was alive, my servant disappeared. In a 
moment she was back again with the neighbor, and came 
in announcing that she had followed my suggestion and 
had brought the woman into the house, and would I 
object to her remaining there till he sobered down? It 
was near twelve o'clock before she dared to go home 
again. 

One night I observed an incident in the home life of 
Japan quite illuminating. On the terrace just below 
the house in which I lived was another private house. A 
wooden gateway stood at the entrance to the yard. Its 
door was made of thin, wide strips. A man could easily 
circumvent it by climbing over the shrubbed parapet to 
the left. 

Scene i. — Mr. Nippon came home at two or three in 
the morning. He must have been having a good time 
with the geisha. He found the door locked, not with a 
patent key, but with a frail little wooden bolt. He 
commenced pounding on this rattly door and calling 
across the yard and the heavens for some delicate 
sleeper to waken and open the gate for him. He beat 
away for fifteen minutes, all in vain. At last, his pa- 
tience exhausted, his temper matured into indignation 
and fevered into violent pounding. His shoulder finally 
pressed the door and the bolt gave way. He was in the 
yard. 

Scene 2. — ^With sweeping strides, in imitation of the 
samurai, he placed the yard behind him and con- 
fronted the door of the house — likewise bolted. He 
rattled it and his tongue vehemently. He seemed 
angry enough to wreck the house. At last a sleepy in- 
mate woke to the realization of the coming of her lord 
and answered his impetuous alarm. Whereupon he 
began to belabor her with words for her neglect. 

So does the three-o'clock husband of Japan arrive. 
He doesn't sneak in with padded feet and fumble his 



CUSTOM AND CRUELTY 89 

key to a most unsteady keyhole, but he wakes the neigh- 
borhood so that all might bear witness to his indepen- 
dence and his overlordship. Far from being ashamed, he 
scolds his wife, orders the outer door to be immediately 
repaired with hammer and nails, regardless of his 
neighbors' peace and comfort. 

And he could just as easily have climbed over the 
hedge and none of us would have been any the wiser. 
That Japanese have no capacity for getting round a 
situation is quite clear. Lovers here do not know how 
to outwit their irate parents and make no attempt to — 
but commit suicide together when opposed. Cornered, 
very few Japanese will work their way out of a situation. 

The Japanese man has been made effeminate by the 
attention he has always received from his women. No 
creature can retain his strength and dignity while being 
waited upon so carefully. The Japanese man occupies 
almost the same place in his society as does our woman 
in ours. We have made an outcry against the over- 
indulgence of our women and its deteriorating effect 
upon the race. The same can be said of the Japanese 
men. 

The head of the household exercises all the authority 
so smugly vested in him. He rules without the bluster 
which so degrades the German woman, which extin- 
guishes the soul of the near-eastern woman, which so 
arouses the indignation of the British woman, and puts 
the Frenchwoman in the way of using mere sex as her 
scepter. The Japanese woman is neither non-existent 
nor over-evident. She is not noticed nor despised. 
How she escapes being lost is an Oriental puzzle. 

I have seen cases which enraged me. A Japanese 
friend of mine, with years of residence abroad and a wife 
bom in America, has, when back in his own country, 
reverted to the Oriental type. While guests were in the 
room she was absent. Though she was big with child. 



90 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

she stooped to put her little husband's tabi on his little 
feet. He, lordling, sat as though she were a dog licking 
his boots. In her pregnant state, she nevertheless 
struggled away to make the "socks" secure, and disap- 
peared without direct thanks. His cigarettes were 
wrapped for him in the cloth which every man carries 
with him, without his having asked for them. His 
cigarettes were likewise lighted for him. He never asked 
for anything. His wants were always anticipated — 
and all silently. He didn't thank her, but did remark 
to me (sometimes she did overhear) about the goodness 
of the Japanese woman. 

Yet of all I met he was the most faithful, with a fine 
mind, broad views of life and social aspirations. He 
couldn't help this. Individually he was not to blame. 
Man will condemn a thing most vigorously until it be- 
comes a custom, then, no matter how wrong, he will 
justify it and live up to every particle with pride. 

Many a young man goes to ruin because, when his 
father dies, no matter how yoimg, he is the master, and 
his mother must abide by his wishes patiently. 

Yet almost the first thing I have been asked by most 
Japanese is whether I have parents living, where they 
are, and why not bring them over with me to Japan. 
Art Smith saw this and was clever enough to bring along 
his mother on his second visit. This was hailed with 
delight, and though, doubtless, he loved his mother, still, 
it was an excellent bit of advertisement, for the papers 
were full of it. 

When both parents are alive, Japanese men are as 
humble as their wives are obedient to them. My 
friend's father and mother came to visit him. Though 
he had been married for five years, he had no child. 
At last the father expressed his dissatisfaction — and a 
child came in due course. 

When I entered the house, his parents were sitting 



THE AFFECTIONS 91 

quietly, without austerity and without restraint, neither 
domineering nor over-familiar, occupying the places 
formerly the seats of my friend and his wife. Our 
placing was obviously formal. The father sat with his 
back to the place of honor. Opposite to him was his 
quiet wife, her face a well of Japanese reserve. And yet 
it is really not reserve. It is deep and reaches back into 
the very heart and soul and beginning of these people. 
It bears no resemblance to restraint, for there is no 
personal conflict. Consequently, instead of curbing and 
crushing the individuality, it seems to expand, to enlarge, 
and to merge with her race. She is not so much Kazuko 
herself, nor yet Mrs. Fujimoto; she is Mrs. Japan. It 
is this way. Our wom.en and men wrench themselves 
out of the mass. They develop individual traits and 
characteristics. Many of them become great through 
that development. But the vast majority of Japanese 
sink into the mass. There the parents sat, she humbly 
staring before her, he reading his newspaper; their son 
chatting with me. 

Foreigners seldom get a chance to look into the home 
life of the Japanese simply because in the majority of 
cases there is no such thing. Even were you to speak 
the language fluently, what would most women talk 
about? They are not trained for social lives, and the 
reason is as much that they are too bashful as that the 
Japanese is wilfully reserved. I have been in the homes 
of a few well-to-do Japanese, and in each case the 
women would be introduced, but would retire soon 
after. The homes are then quiet. Among the educated 
and the converted, the woman does come forward a 
little, but generally finds more pleasure in serving 
delicacies than entering the conversation. 

This is due to the absence of natural selection in the 
matter of mating. Were a young man free to choose, he 
would decide upon one who would not only be wife and 



92 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

mother, but also companion. As it is, only rarely are 
the dull and stupid eliminated. The parents are more 
concerned about having meek and obedient daughters-in- 
law whom they can manage than that their sons should 
have pleasant companions. 

My friend had a love-affair to handle one evening. A 
young man of twenty (who looked like a boy of fifteen) 
was living with him as pupil and servant. His home was 
near Nagasaki. My friend took up every detail of the 
boy's affair much as he would have handled a proposed 
amalgamation of two business firms. He advised him 
to wait four or five years longer, and his advice was 
accepted. The solemnity with which the affair was con- 
ducted was thrilling. I had to wait an hour on the floor 
below while the proceedings were going on. A hush 
hung over the household. And when my friend ap- 
peared, it was like the arrival of a minister of state 
after an all-night session. 

As rigorously as such matters are handled, still the 
Japanese household is by no means efficiently con- 
ducted. The woman has work to do from morning till 
night. She must rise early, though she has a servant — 
and most of them have — and attend to all the details 
in the same way as does the mother of the West. There 
are the meals to be prepared and the children to be sent 
to school; there is the rice to be washed in an ordinary 
bucket, and there are the clothes to be washed and plas- 
tered upon wooden boards instead of ironing. There 
is only one essential in which the life of the Japanese 
woman differs from the life of the working housewife 
elsewhere in the world — and that is that there is no 
cradle to rock. The mother is herself the cradle, or 
else she ties the numerous babies on the backs of the 
servant, nurse, or older children and goes about her 
duties. 

One of my last experiences before graduating into the 



I ENTERTAIN 93 

world at large was entertaining. I had by this time 
become not only an efficient householder, running up 
against servant problems, city graft, and inefficiency, 
landlord problems, and all the intricate irritations of 
home life in Japan, but I had become an official. I was 
accepted as instructor of English in one of the Imperial 
Japanese government schools, and was expected, among 
other tasks, to entertain the students on occasion. Thus 
I was compelled to initiate many a youth and grown- 
up into the intricacies of sitting at a table and using 
knives and forks. Once a Japanese brought some of 
his friends along, and as soon as he arrived he took 
a pad of paper from my desk and wrote, *'You go get 
some ice-cream." 

But the lens was slowly being adjusted for more 
detailed observation, and though I had gathered much 
general information I had not till then felt that I under- 
stood the relation of one fact to the other, for it is only 
after the family is known that the mass of human beings 
with whom one rubs shoulders on the street begins to 
seem rational and interesting. 




HOW STRIKINGLY SIMILAR THEIR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS 




THE WHITE-CLOTHED POLICEMAN EARNS LITTLE MONEY BUT LOTS OF RESPECT 




L._ 



BORN IN JAPAN 




DISSATISFIED BUT CURIOUS: THE CHILD KNOWETH ITS FATHER 

SO WAS I FROM ITS MOTHER 



Part Two 
THE COMMUNAL PHASE 




VI 

MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN 

.HE plastic nature of the Oriental has given 
the Japanese an ancient and long-enduring 
civilization. This yielding persistence is evi- 
dent in many forms of his social life. With 
all the rigid conventions of the Japanese, he 
enjoys a freedom of individual action which 
might well be the envy of his Occidental brothers. 
In spite of the fact that his inner life is shut off to the 
wandering stranger, and even to the one who has made the 
land his permanent home, there are phases of his life so 
communal as to be an open book to him who will but stop 
to read. Japanese do things in public for which we would 
ostracize a man or send him to the lockup. From their 
communal spirit which tolerates bathing in public to- 
gether they go to the other extreme of coming out on 
their balconies and clearing their throats at five o'clock in 
the morning and expectorating into the open gutters be- 
low. They will hold their fans before their mouths when 
talking or yawning, as do we, but will cough and sneeze 
in your face on the street-cars. And yet, among the 
refined, observance of custom is pathetically beautiful. 
They come to celebrate the arrival of the cherry blossoms 
by bringing with them their geisha and their children; 
they move in perfect hordes; they go to the station in 
masses to see off some friend or relative and crowd the 
platforms, bowing and bowing and bowing again as 
though there weren't a thousand strangers passing before 



98 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

them; they dress, undress, eat, sleep, and drink whisky 
by the tumblerful on the trains — yet their inner lives 
are as secret to one another as they seem to be to the 
foreigner. It is as though from behind the scenes — in 
which many people are more interested than in the play 
itself — the actors had come, forgetting, in a moment of 
absent-mindedness, to put on their make-up, or had come 
upon the street, forgetting to take it off. 

The image here alluded to is better understood in 
another way. Japan best symbolizes itself on its wet 
days. A coimtry is interesting and romantic or not 
according to the impression it makes on rainy days. It 
is easy enough to love it when the sun is bright and 
clear, or attractive and restful at twilight. But night- 
time and rainy days are the great test. How the beating 
of the rain flays the lazy earth to activity in Switzer- 
land, in the Adirondacks in New York, and in countries 
where rain is spring's awakener! Not so in the East. 
In Japan there seems no connection between rain and 
birth and growth — like the primitive man who saw no 
connection between a momentary impulse and the birth 
of a child. In Japan when it rains, it pours. Every- 
thing becomes sloppy, the streets deep with mud. But 
two things make Japan on rainy days as pretty and 
attractive as it has been pictured — the rickshaw and the 
karakasa (umbrella) . The long streets are less crowded ; 
rickshaws are hard to get; men and women pass with 
skirts drawn up to their knees, babies hang on under the 
large round karakasa. The slush requires two, three, or 
four-inch wooden clogs to keep feet clear of mud. Some 
coolies wear straw capes, and horses are sometimes 
covered as with straw armor. Yet in spite of mud and 
downpour, the people wade on as though paved streets 
were undignified and bare legs quite modest. 

In the great umbrella one sees the structure and the 
make-up of Japan symbolized. It is big enough to 



NO RACE SUICIDE 99 

protect the entire family — and though there are always 
exceptions to every rule — in Japan the family is thought 
of, whether it is actually served or not in the thing made. 

There is no race suicide as yet in Japan. Nor have 
mothers and fathers reached that stage of modesty 
where they leave the product of their union at home and 
out of sight. It seems to me that our western civiliza- 
tion, with its shyness and over-emphasis of certain 
conceptions of morality, has brought about race suicide 
and has made motherhood ashamed of itself. Here in 
Japan, where the increase in population is about eight 
hundred thousand every year, there is none of that sen- 
sitiveness. What is more interesting is to see how 
evenly the burdens of rearing offspring are shared. 
Men and boys are seen carrying the young upon their 
backs almost as often as women, and it would seem that 
a father who is true to his duty to his children is not 
regarded as effeminate. Nor is it done merely as a duty. 
The bearer, whether mother, father, sister, or brother, 
is often seen chatting to the tiny mite upon his or her 
back, playing with and amusing the burden. This is 
another phase of the communal character of these people. 
No one seems to mind the presence in public places of 
all these children and their nurses, however much they 
may interfere with the traffic. 

The men on the street are not over-attractive. They 
are without bearing, without prepossession. They lack 
in vital personality. Here and there is an impressive 
figure. A tall, dark-faced individual in western clothing, 
with a black cape and soft hat, makes his way along 
the street. The cape is the general male costume in 
Japan. Doubtless this individual is an actor; perhaps 
a poet. So say his flowing black hair and artist tie. 
But one cannot tell by the variety of costume that there 
is really a variety of avocations. In general, the men's 
dress is not over-neat. Drawers protrude from under 



loo JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

the skirts of the kimonos, dirty, wrinkled because gen- 
erally far too long for the wearer, not always clean; 
shirts and sleeves show from under the upper part of 
the kimono, seldom tidy, seldom really clean. The 
Japanese dress all awry. I soon ceased contemplating 
how gloriously beautiful it must have been in ancient 
Rome. It seemed that the close-cut western suit is 
best for the average man too busy and too indifferent to 
attend to his appearance. When the Japanese dons 
his full-dress costume, he is fine to look at — but on the 
street every day — ^he is more of a clown than a handsome 
hero. And when he begins to dress on the train call 
the policeman — to learn that it is not against the law in 
Japan to expose one's body. 

In winter the men put on furs and mufflers, wind 
them round about their heads in such ways as would 
create riotous amusement if a western woman tried it. 

The Japanese man swaggers a little too much upon the 
public highways to be attractive. He does not consider 
it effeminate to place his arm round his male friend's 
waist or hold his hands as they proceed together. He 
sings aloud when the spirit moves him. But he does 
not chew tobacco nor stand upon the street - comers 
flirting with the girls. I have watched them by the 
hour passing before me in an incessant stream of strag- 
glers seemingly bound for nowhere in particular. In 
summer the color scheme is bright and cheerful; in 
winter, dull and somber. But whether summer or 
winter, the faces of the men are always the same — ^re- 
served, yet free and content, and self-conscious. 

The book-stores are crowded — but all other shops 
seem everlastingly to be waiting for a customer. Men 
do most of the selling, but not much of the shopping. 
They are not the package-bearers. Their hands are 
too delicate, often held as daintily as our women hold 
theirs. In winter their hands are drawn back through 



THE MOVING THRONG loi 

the broad sleeves and tucked away into the bosom of 
their kimonos for warmth. 

Once an army officer bridegroom stepped out of a 
motor-car in all his official regalia; his dainty bride 
followed in pursuit across the street. They were 
not rushing away from matrimonial celebrants. They 
were not even dressed for the ceremony. They were 
bound for the photographer's, where, for the benefit of 
the generations to come, they were to have themselves 
made into ancestors visible in perpetuity. 

Or the crowded street is suddenly orderlied. The 
mass of moving men becomes set, eager, attentive, like 
the * 'walking-stick ' ' worm when facing danger. The way 
opens to a batch of soldiers, in their cheap brown uni- 
forms, tired-looking, uninterested. A few months ago 
they were young conscripts, perhaps, being sent off to 
the station with bamboo poles floating thin strips of 
paper. Then they had been up all night celebrating 
their last few hours of freedom. Now they are short and 
quick — and not a little weary -looking. 

The motor-cars whizz by in countable nnmhers, narikin 
with geisha on their way to the tea-houses for an evening 
spree. The more exclusive, closed rickshaw with its soli- 
tary passenger is likewise bent on business or on pleasure. 

Again, the street may be crowded with interminable 
wagonettes, pigeon-cages, improvised trees, and white- 
wood food palanquins or fancy tub-coffin containers. 
A funeral. 

It is a strange throng. Nothing in one's own ex- 
perience can translate it. It seems inexplicable. But 
the foreigner need not really find it so. The way is 
always open for the curious. He can generally count 
on the Japanese being as eager to speak to him as he is 
to find out — as long as he keeps to English. And so 
any question rightly placed puts you instantly in con- 
tact with the whole current of life. You now have a 



I02 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

"free" guide who seldom leads you anywhere. He will, 
however, speak with you interminably. 

I had entered into conversation with a young man on 
the train, one night, on my way down from Tokyo. 
He had as companion a charming little girl, and seemed 
pleased that I admired her. A more dainty little person 
would be hard to find in Japan. She was his sister. 
All night long she used him as a pillow or he in turn put 
his head in her lap. Her postures were kittenish in the 
extreme — but his were no less gentle. He was a student 
at the Imperial University in Kyoto, whither he was 
bound after a visit to his parents. As is the Japanese 
custom, we exchanged cards. A few days afterward I 
received a letter from him, inviting me to visit them in 
Kyoto. Such is the lovely nature of the Japanese. 
In that casual way I saw into the life of the people at a 
glance. The several points in his letter were more than 
personal; they were ethical, national, and emotional. 
There was the reference to flowers and to parents, and 
all that host of sentiments and interests which is 
Japan. 

It is the easiest thing in the world for a white man to 
come in contact with the Japanese. You can put your 
hand on the Japanese heart. It is rarely you meet so 
loving a people, a people glad to receive you. What 
though, like most hasty marriages, there frequently is 
serious disappointment! At least you have not wasted 
a lifetime in trying to make acquaintance. 

There is an absence of cement in every Japanese rela- 
tionship, which goes to explain much that mystifies the 
foreigner. That is why foreign traders have had so 
much difficulty with their contracts. And that is why 
Japanese still allow their parents to arrange their mar- 
riages for them without consultation. To the stranger 
in Japan this cordiality is a blessing, for otherwise he 
would miss the pleasure of thinking he has an attractive 



COUPLES 103 

personality. Otherwise he would watch the combina- 
tions on the street and fail to understand. 

For instance, it is more than common to see couples 
and families pass along the thoroughfare together. 
There is that distinction between a Japanese crowd and 
a western one — that children are so invariably present 
that one picks out the young childless couples as a 
curiosity. They stand above the mass. As they move 
by, all the tender pride of race is seen expressed. Some- 
times a tall young man with stiff -kneed stride (because 
of his wooden clogs) sways in his gait with new-bom 
pride, his flowing garments giving before the wind. At 
his side trots the dainty little creature trying to keep up 
with him. What fearlessness, what cheerfulness and 
hopefulness! She does not lag behind, not she. She is 
the modem maid of Japan. She bends slightly forward 
as before the winds of his ambition ; her obi (girdle with 
tremendous bow) increases the angle of her back, but 
the covering kimono softens the stoop a little. Com- 
panionable, spirited, and appealing — she wears the red 
pantaloon-skirt of the school-girl, and moves with a 
grace her tightly skirted sisters cannot imitate. 

Everywhere the women are more interesting than the 
men. 

There was a little woman on my street who miracu- 
lously escaped a spanking. She was round-faced and 
red-cheeked, and moved about quickly and gaily, bub- 
bling with mischievous intent. She was quite imcon- 
scious of this offensive effect she had on me, but I felt 
certain that a spanking to stimulate her cheekiness and 
playfulness, leaving spanker and spankee in a merrier 
mood, was just what she needed. She would not even 
flirt — so she should have been as sedate and self-effacing 
as are her sisters. 

Two girls sat behind a vender's stand. The place 
was in front of a noise-making movie, with the shrine 



I04 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

grounds all about it. While the vender, lean and 
lanky, sought to induce others to enjoy his delicacies, 
these two girls sat on their heels, the little glass dish 
held within two inches of their mouths, their heads 
slightly bowed. They were dirty with animal negligence 
and indifference. They were small with rabbit-like 
smallness. They were shy with puppy shyness. As 
each raised the little tin spoon, to which she was ob- 
viously unaccustomed, to her mouth, she stole a glance 
upward as a timid little puppy would over his milk. 
And they drew in the long strings of grayish jelly with 
a sound, and turned the spoon over in the mess for more. 

Meanwhile the tall, lanky vender stood before them, 
behind his "store," urging the passers-by to partake of 
his delicacy. And when two boys came up and presented 
their sen each, he put his hand into the water in the large 
wooden box, away to the bottom, pulled out an oblong 
slice of grayish jelly, placed it in the oblong channel of 
the wooden mincer, pushed in the wooden plug till the 
whole of the jelly emerged in square-shaped strings, 
pushed his oblong piece of ice across the scraper, gath- 
ered the ice-shavings into the plate of jelly-strings, threw 
a dash of colored juice over the mess — and it was edible. 
And the sounds of satisfaction slipped behind each in- 
taking of jelly as it disappeared stomach-ward. 

Then came the vender's triumph. The two girls 
asked for another plate each. When they finished 
those, they passed on, leaving the tall and lanky vender 
free to trade with other passers-by. 

Foreigners in Japan all acclaim the sweetness of the 
Japanese woman, her evenness of temper and selfless- 
ness, and in comparison with the Japanese man doubt- 
less she is a much superior creature indeed. But only 
men who are too weak to desire equals in their mates 
will set the Japanese woman above the western woman 
as superior in character and in womanliness. True, 



FLYING CARP 105 

many western women have become selfish as the result 
of coddling, but who has any respect for a person who 
will be bullied submissively ? A Japanese writer, recom- 
mending Korean women to Japanese, said that if 
Japanese knew how "docile" the Korean girls were 
they would not hesitate to marry them. 

Consequently, lovable and sweet as most refined 
Japanese women are, their lack of assertiveness and their 
self-effacement make them more to be pitied than ad- 
mired. I noticed this at the barber shop. Everything 
was quiet, and the wife would assist the barber with 
miraculous precision. Towels would be brought with- 
out being asked for, and everything attended to without 
her speaking a word. The daughter, too, assisted at 
shaving, and seemed as though she were from another 
world. 

One day the barber had to go to Kyoto. I found the 
girl and mother attending to the work as usual. But 
how different! While the girl shaved me, the mother 
talked. She told me all their troubles, though her face 
was cheerful. She was very anxious about her other 
daughter, who was in the hospital in Kyoto. Until that 
day I had not heard her voice. 

Nothing exemplifies the meekness and humility of the 
Japanese woman more than the very common sight of 
a mother nursing a sturdy youngster in full view of the 
general public. Once a middle-aged woman stood upon 
the street, her breasts bare; on her back was strapped a 
baby. Another woman, similarly ridden, stood beside 
her. A pretty little baby boy stood between them. 
The woman with the bare breasts held one of them out 
to the little boy and he tasted of it with satisfaction. 
"Take a loan of mine" might have been a good caption 
for that picture. It is not the so-called immodesty of 
the Japanese woman which permits this, as is so often 
charged. It is the general acceptation of her status as 



io6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

mother that leaves her unconscious of any sense of 
modesty. A woman can be nothing else; then why 
conceal it? The ever-present baby on the back makes 
of motherhood in Japan a cross upon which mankind 
has hung for centuries. Were she to rebel and force 
man to bear the burden of children with her, social life 
would be better symbolized by the tori, sl gateway for 
human progress. It comes near being that in Japan, 
as far as attention to babies goes. 

The old women in Japan seem much older and more 
withered than other old women in the world. That is 
because they have too many children and nurse them 
too long. It is not an uncommon sight along the way 
for a youngster from two to six years old to stop his game 
to have a lick at his mother's breast. And the mother 
is always patient. I have seen but one case of a woman 
slapping a child in anger. 

Race suicide is as yet far from threatening Japan. 
From the housetops — or rather from the forty-foot 
bamboo poles — ^Japan declares the fact to the world at 
large. Enormous cloth carp, done in their brilliant 
colors, float in the wind over every house fortimate 
enough to have a boy or boys. Open at both ends, 
when inflated they wiggle just as the live fish would 
wiggle when swimming. They seem to be going against 
the wind just as in the water the carp works his way up 
the streams against the currents. And this is the 
symbol set before the boy in Japan. It is a true 
symbol, for with eight himdred thousand children coming 
into the Nipponese world every year over and above 
those births offset by deaths, the growing youngster had 
better make up his mind to test his strength in the flood 
if he wants to get up into the fresher headwaters of his 
Oriental world. 

Yet the symbol is not altogether true. For no baby 
in the animal and human kingdoms is more indulged 



BOYS 107 

than is the little one of Japan. The floating carp is the 
symbol of his reign, the squirming thoroughfares the 
explanation. Here he is master of man, and is seen in 
numbers sufficient to enforce his rule. The people of 
America and Europe simply have no conception of 
what a surplus of babies means, in the Oriental sense. 
To be unable to pass down the most important business 
street, or to board a car or a train, without seeing as 
many children as grown-ups ; to be unable to dissociate 
the woman from the child — which is ever present on her 
back; to see children running from in front of the 
motor-cars, and squirming in the alleys, piled one upon 
the other in cruel disregard of the health of the older 
ones, and in shameful degradation of the unwilling 
mothers! The meekness with which little children — 
both boys and girls — of from eight years up submit to 
being saddled with their baby sisters and brothers is 
indicative of their lack of vitality. Pretty or pathetic 
as the picture of Japanese child life may be, their ever- 
running colds and ill-nourished appearance impress one 
with the magnitude of the problem the children present. 
One cannot get away from it. But somehow, numerous 
as children are, they seem to have a place all their own 
— and one delights in them as part of the make-up of 
the East. 

They are not so active as the children of the West, 
and consequently get less in the way of the adults and 
require less disciplining. Their games are less vigorous, 
and many seem to be content with more serious occupa- 
tions than mere make-believe. In all the offices and 
businesses they abound in great numbers. One can- 
not understand this — for the authorities claim a 98 
percent, school attendance. In the stores and shops 
and smithies they assist with an attention to the work 
in hand mature beyond their age. Over a certain age 
they do not stand much coddling, taking themselves 



io8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

more seriously than in American communities. Even 
in their games they respond in such a way as to give 
the impression of appreciation of the effect of present 
exercise on future affairs. 

For instance, you never see a personal fight; but 
playing soldier is quite common. Here the captain has 
his "men" under thorough discipline, you may be sure, 
and from the spirit in which they respond to his com- 
mands it is no child's play to them. The promptitude, 
the rigidity into which they stiffen at sound of attention, 
the soldier-like way in which they march off, are a credit 
to the militarism of which their misguided elders are so 
proud. 

Two boys were quarreling near Nunobiki Waterfalls, 
the only instance of the kind I had seen in Japan. 
One was crying, but held some stones in his hand, with 
which he threatened his antagonist. I watched to see 
the results, but the strangest thing happened. Two 
young men came along. One of them stepped up to 
them, gently knocked the stones out of the hands of the 
youngster, and told them to run along. In America the 
men would have urged them on to battle. 

Wherever you go, child life affords peep-hole glimpses 
into the life of the people. The usual self -consciousness 
of the grown-up is reflected in the attitudinizing of the 
youngsters. As I whirled past in the train, one day, I 
saw three little fellows, naked to the dirt on their skins, 
posing rigidly and jumping about fiatfootedly — fencing 
with sticks for swords, just as the samurai are supposed 
to have done during the two hundred years of their 
indolent superiority. 

Occasionally you see child nature, with its wild in- 
stincts, get the better of drilling. So one day I came 
across a pygmy army skirmishing up the pass behind the 
city in Cemetery Valley. It was out for victory. But 
one little fellow suddenly spied a sparrow attacking a 



CHILD PASTIMES 109 

semi (cicada), beloved pet of the Japanese boy. He 
dashed down the hillside as though on wings, trilled his 
tongue in a flood of indignant wrath, chasing the mur- 
derous bird from spot to spot, till, having killed the 
insect, the sparrow carried it away through the air. 
In size the boy was to the bird what the bird was to 
the semi. His tahi (cloth shoes) had been worn through 
the toe by an elder brother and were now turned up and 
back over the toes of their present occupant. Though 
the smallest of the group, he ruled the army — and after 
this digression for the sake of his favorite creature he 
took command again. 

In semi season the boy world in Japan is agog with 
green little bamboo cages and twenty- or thirty-foot 
bamboo poles. Groups of these youthful hunters invade 
the hills and poke the joyous little insects off their 
perches into captivity. They carry them about in their 
hands, all the while the shrill voices — either in furious 
protest or healthy indifference — put the lazy grasshopper 
to shame. Successful hunters may have a dozen or more 
semi in their cages — and the noise they make is enough 
to gladden the heart of any loving child. 

Life is never dull to the Japanese youngster. All day 
long, when his mother is too busy to fondle him, he 
watches and learns life's lessons from over her shoulder. 
His father is not as yet a factory worker — though 
many have lately become so — and he watches and 
learns his trade from his youngest days. And he never 
seems to be in the way. The barber's baby was bawling, 
but there was no frantic rush to his relief so common 
with us. Though crying is common enough in Japan, 
still, this lack of anxiety on the part of the mother, her 
cold temperament — or rather, suppressed nature — keeps 
her from further precipitating erraticism in her off- 
spring. So while the baby went on howling, the mother 
went on helping and the father went on shaving. 



no JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

On the main street, near the car line, four youngsters 
came along, keen with curiosity. They were staring at 
the white man. Two were inside the dilapidated 
baby-carriage, one about three years old, the other 
about seven ; the third pushed the cart, which was front 
backward; the fourth ran along the side. Upon pegs 
in the chassis of the carriage hung the wooden geta 
(shoes) — even here they had not dared to enter without 
removing them. The wicker-basket body was old and 
worn. They came to a halt beside me, alert with sweet 
inquisitiveness. The youngest looked at me with a 
happy smile — pleased to see that I was friendly. The 
others were also unusually alert, not staring that dull, 
thoughtless, blank stare so common with Japanese 
children. We were friends in a few seconds, and they 
told me they were going to the comer — quite a journey. 
Then of a sudden the biggest — who had been pushing — 
hopped astride the wicker body of the cart, just over the 
shoulders of the smallest, the second assistant put his 
hands to the cart, and it started slowly off. I was waiting 
for a car. Before it came they were back again. They 
had changed their minds about that journey. 

It is amazing to see the number of children crowd- 
ing the book-stores, looking over the magazines. It is 
a tribute to a certain humanity in business in Japan 
that they handle these highly colored periodicals with 
their crude illustrations without being disturbed by the 
proprietors. Western children during their leisure hours 
would be seen revenging themselves on inactivity by 
games. Here they seem to extend their long school 
hours in self -instruction. But truth to tell, the absence 
of libraries in which our yoimgsters read accounts for 
this poring over magazine stands. When in the mass 
Japanese children revert to latent childishness. But 
even in the courtyards of the schools there is none of 
that rampageous wildness of our school grounds, and 





SHOUT "boy" and this APPEARS BUT THIS WILL SOON ORDER THE BOYS 




CURIOSITY NEVER AFFECTS US LIKE THIS — BUT A SHIP S COME IN 




THE TENDERNESS OF JAPANESE CHILDREN IS PATHETIC AND THEIR NATURES 

ARE LOVABLE 




NO NOTION OF WHAT S HAPPENING, BUT OBLIGING JUST THE SAME 



LITTLE SAMURAI iii 

in place of howling and yelling you hear a humming 
and squirming like that of a hive. It may be that, 
besides the lack of sufficient nourishment, the little 
skirts of their kimonos and the wooden clogs hamper 
their activity, yet it is not infrequent to see wild lads 
tearing on through the streets in perfect ease. 

But the Japanese boy is best seen to advantage with 
his family as the background. With a cap like a sol- 
dier's and a head broader behind than before — ^bumps 
which would mystify any phrenologist, his face an open 
book of unprinted pages to a physiognomist, and the bear- 
ing of a daimyo — he typifies Japan more than does the 
adult Japanese himself. Had he any need for bullying, 
he would not hesitate to resort to it, but he never finds it 
necessary, for as water gives way before solids, so every 
one makes way for him. He has no need of demanding 
room. It is his. He cannot command attention, for 
he is never without it. He is master of his environment 
as long as he is a baby. His troubles begin as soon as 
he has outgrown that stage, but until then he is every- 
body else's trouble. Such a one was the object of the 
attention of two men, two women, and a poor, unnoticed, 
miserable, insignificant little girl, one day while on the 
interurban electric car. For him the window was 
shut; he walked about the seats; he ate oranges from 
everybody's share; and for all the world he seemed to 
smile complacently and with scorn at these ministrations. 
The wife of a friend of mine says that even in Los 
Angeles, where she and her sisters and little brother 
were bom, they took his superiority for granted. 

If I were to paint a picture of Japanese national life, 

it would group itself somewhat like this. In the center 

would be the boy, borne about most royally — yet an 

ancestor-worshiper. This seems somewhat paradoxical. 

Why isn't he being worshiped? The way of the world 

is for the worshiped to stand aloof from his devotees. 
8 



112 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

But our Japanese boy performs the acrobatic feat of 
worshiping his parents from his mother's back. 

At the upper left-hand comer of the canvas he would 
be seen wading up to his neck in slimy, stagnant moats, 
netting fish. When he caught one he would throw it 
through the air to a dozen less grown, but not less dirty 
yoimgsters on dry land. These place the unfortunate 
creatures in a basket. Occasionally the boy emerges, 
exhibiting a tanned body as slimy as that of an eel, but 
a face of utter contentment. 

In the upper right-hand comer he would appear in a 
more divine attitude. He would be making his priestly 
paces behind his preceptor in the temple or at a funeral. 
Though self-conscious, he would look bom to the pro- 
fession. Or he might be stationed behind the temple, 
given a thin bamboo pointer and a shrine of relics, and 
told to explain the worn-out trappings. In Hfe his voice 
is the shrill monotone of the Japanese recitative. His 
face is devoid of expression ; but should the head priest 
appear, a smile of childish satisfaction would cross him 
— pride of his skill and his learning before his ideal. 

All along the bottom and in continuous procession 
would be shown marching children — in number, legion — 
a thing as much a part of the Japanese boy's (and girl's) 
life as it is of the life of the soldier. Nowhere in the 
wide world have I seen so much parading of the streets 
by veritable armies of youngsters as here in Japan. At 
almost every turn you may expect to meet a double 
file of tiny tots in uniform, with the Japanese soldier's 
cap — marching — marching — marching — to some Shinto 
shrine such as the imperial shrines at Yamada Ise. In 
fact, it was the last thing I really saw in Japan. And as 
I stood before those simple thatch-roofed huts, made 
sacred by the greatest bit of poHtical charlatanism extant 
to-day — ^saw the division after division of school-children 
brought before them, commanded to bow in military 




A CARP FOR EACH BOY 





NO "WUXTRA, " BUT A CLUSTER OF 
JINGLING BELLS 



FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE 
RIDICULOUS 




THE UMPIRE WITH THE SWORD AND THE STENTOR WITH THE SKIRT ARE JUST 

AS IMPORTANT 




BUT THE UMPIRE DOESN T TAKE HIMSELF AS SERIOUSLY AS THE WINNER 



KISS-LESS AFFECTION 113 

fashion, ordered to about face and bow to another set 
of shrines somewhere beyond the hills but no less sacred 
— I felt that not all the affection Japanese parents bear 
their young could ever compensate them for this great 
imposition. 

Nor does all the freedom and lordliness afforded the 
baby in Japan compensate it for want of one of the ten- 
derest of human actions — the kiss. 




VII 

RECREATION 

UMANITY in Japan amuses itself in ways not 
a great deal different from our own. Except 
for the outpouring, in season, to view the 
coming of the plum-blossoms or the pink-and- 
white glory of the cherry-trees — which, in 
truth, is not much more than an excuse for 5a^^-drink- 
ing and carnival hilarity — ^Japan shuffles along to its 
parks and museums and zoos in just the same indolent, 
pleasure-seeking attitude as do we. At its zoos it feeds 
the animals with roasted beans instead of peanuts, and 
watches the monkeys with immodest indifference to what 
would elicit from westerners a sidelong glance. 

Without being unduly harsh toward the Japanese, I 
am constrained to say that that immodesty is only 
another form of cruelty. The offspring of religious 
tenet is often a freak of nature. It is so in the case of 
the care of animals. Because the teachings of Buddha 
forbade the killing of animals, neglect and torture are 
frequently resorted to which in the West would give 
grounds for action by the Humane Society. It is no 
uncommon occurrence to hear the cries of little kittens 
that have been put out to starve to death because those 
responsible do not want to kill them. Animals in Japan 
find their masters hard indeed. Now, where the lack 
of modesty makes them cruel in the eyes of the west- 
erner is in their leaving a female monkey exposed in all 
the disgusting hideousness of giving birth to a young one 
in full view of the gawking public. 



CRUELTY TO ANIMALS 115 

But this passive cruelty has its active counterparts 
also. In the zoo at Suma (near Kobe) those in charge 
wanted to get rid of a bear and decided to bury him 
alive. In the Nara zoo the keepers have put a small, 
rodent -like creature into the cage with monkeys. The 
latter attack it in hordes and have torn the hair off its 
back. But no one protested against this, though thou- 
sands have watched the torture. In the same zoo there 
is a monkey with a chain about its neck. It has been 
there for years, and the chain has worn its way into the 
flesh, leaving it raw and unsightly. The chain was 
placed there because this monkey was belligerent and 
cross in nature and because Japanese Buddhists will 
not take life. In the Tokyo zoo is an elephant in a 
similar situation, with the chain cut deep into the 
beast's foot. Protest from an influential journal like 
The Japan Chronicle, time and time again, has not had 
the slightest effect. In Osaka I once saw a little sparrow 
flit out of the hands of a little boy walking beside a 
grown-up man. But the poor little bird got no farther 
than about six feet away, for it was suddenly yanked 
back by the wing, round which was fastened the end of 
a string. His fond parent scowled at me for protesting 
against this bit of cruelty. 

On the other hand, with so-called sacred animals, the 
Japanese are as gentle and tender and kind as could be 
desired. The dog is sacred at Koya-san, but worked 
very heavily at Nara. The deer roam the park at Nara 
almost as tame as domestic animals, and are fed by all 
visitors, who have trained them to bow politely in 
Japanese fashion before receiving the round brown rice 
cake. There are sacred albino, who grow fat and rest- 
less and ill-tempered for want of sufficient exercise. 
And the foreign world, as it wanders with the Japanese 
in their public places, is divided in its opinion as to 
whether they are the most humane or most cruel people 



ii6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

in the world. There has been organized, through the 
influence of the foreigners, an S. P. C. A., but it is as yet 
receiving scant support from the natives, who look and 
laugh at the chicken-hearted foreigners for mixing them- 
selves up in matters that don't concern them, as, for in- 
stance, overloading horses. Eventually they will, no 
doubt, grow less indifferent. But so far recreation to 
Japanese does not seem to be marred by sights of 
unnecessary cruelty. 

There is another form of outdoor recreation in Japan 
which, though at present deprived of its potential hurt- 
fulness, is harsh in spirit at least. That is fencing. 
By no means more cruel in original intent than our 
hunting or fencing or dueling, still in mannerisms it has 
retained all the appearances for harm for which it was 
designed. The yelping attending each onslaught, togeth- 
er with the stalking attitudes and poses, makes of this 
effete art a living symbol of a former barbarism. Yet it 
is coming back into favor with the reaction against 
much that is western in the life of present-day Japan. 

The reaction is, verbally at least, away from football 
and baseball. The latter became a substitute national 
game. But I have had many a discussion with my 
Japanese students over the question whether in the end 
the innovation will supersede a game which pleases their 
national vanity more — individualistic wrestling. In 
their games Japanese are individualists; in social life 
they have no individuality, a curious fact in view of 
its antithesis in our characteristics. In baseball the 
Japanese have done remarkably well. In tennis a 
Japanese has won the amateur world championship. 
But just to be Japanese they have expressed themselves 
to me as willing and anxious to throw away the new and 
return to the old. 

Ajid what is that old? 

Whatever may be said of the manliness of Japanese 



SELF-CONSCIOUS SPORTS 117 

wrestling, fencing, and jtido, their basic usefulness is too 
limited. The art of self-defense is necessary in a world 
of personal danger; with that overcome there must be 
something else in sports to stimulate interest and make 
them socially valuable. Japanese sports are suited 
to an age in which individual prowess won for the great 
warrior fame and glory. But modem life demands the 
play of that selfsame prowess between groups of individ- 
uals. And for Japanese to try to throw aside group 
sports on false national pride is a retrogressive move. 

I am not writing as a sportsman favoring his own art. 
My interest is in psychology, or human behavior. 
What interest I took in Japanese sports was in order to 
study the human nature behind them. 

Japanese athletic arts impressed me as being the acme 
of self -consciousness. In archery, in fencing, in all, I 
am sure he feels historic pride rather than the pleasure of 
exercise for its own sake. He attitudinizes in ways which 
in the West would be regarded as unsportsman-like — 
a trait common enough among cheap pugilists. When 
the Japanese enters a western game he is free and 
vigorous, but in his own he becomes offensively showy. 
He stamps his feet and swerves his weapon in ways 
frightfully overbearing and cocky. 

Jujutsu (or, as a later form is now called, judo) is very 
interesting, though it begins to drag toward the end. A 
contest consists of pairs of men throwing each other, one 
after the other, the victor always taking the next op- 
ponent in his second bout. The final comes out the 
champion. Occasionally the untaught outsider sees a 
clever and thrilling throw or an adroit parry. At one 
match I saw one man throw three husky fellows before 
being thrown himself. The last of the lot threw one 
big, heavy fellow clear over his shoulders. But I no- 
ticed that the thrown man was burning with rage when 
he rose, and his comrades rushed to him with vengeance 



ii8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

written all over them. Most of the art seems to be in 
forestalling the acts of the other. Pairs rise from the 
squatting postures they have assumed, facing each other 
on the mats, meet, and are thrown very rapidly ; and it is 
only the great number of contestants which makes the 
game interesting and prolonged. 

A wrestling-match is similarly contested. When a 
national game is announced, the streets for days are 
agog with excitement. Drummers pass over highway 
and byway distributing circulars as for a circus. Thou- 
sands spend the whole day watching it. In Kobe it 
was held in a tent. As usual, instead of seats there were 
mats with four-inch boarding separating the ''boxes." 
Again the communal spirit of the people was evidenced 
by the absence of individual seating arrangements. 

Osaka that day was challenging Tokyo, and the 
champion wrestler of Japan was to appear. It was his 
last bout, as he was getting too old for the game. He 
wanted to retire unconquered. All his followers were 
tense with anticipation. 

Having located my Japanese friends, I looked about to 
get my bearings. It was nothing unusual — a mass of 
squatting people ordering their rice and pickles and tea, 
or smoking their cigarettes. Only a few women — and 
they geisha — were present. The stentorian shout of 
the umpire brought my attention back to the canopied 
ring in the center. He was a glorious sight to look upon, 
reminding one of Maude Adams in "Chantecleer." 
Close-fitting breeches, tight about the knees but some- 
what loose at the thighs, stockings, cap, and jacket 
being of uniform cloth, he was the last word in gorgeous 
make-up. His attitudes were severe throughout. He 
continued yelping from the moment he was announced 
by a squeaking, shrill youngster till the bout he refereed 
was over. His judgments and decisions were law. 

In extreme contrast were the wrestlers. They were 



OVER-EATING— UNDER-DRESSING 1 19 

as naked as he was overdressed ; they were as large and 
fat as he was small and slender. For wrestlers are mon- 
strosities in this world of little people — largely through 
breeding, but as much through feeding. They are not 
handsome; they are not pleasant. Here, too, self- 
consciousness is marked, and is emphasized by the top- 
knot, that relic of the old days, which resembles the 
pummel of a Mexican saddle. They are coarse, unin- 
tellectual-looking, and not even healthy, for their skins 
are very often marred by eruptions. 

But none of this seems to detract from their skill or 
minimize their importance in Japanese eyes. When 
each set of wrestlers arrived on the arena, they formed a 
circle round the ring and locked arms over each other's 
shoulders. They appeared in glittering embroidered 
aprons bearing their family crests or coats-of-arms ; 
but these costumes were removed prior to the bout. 

The wrestling is all on the feet, and ends instantly 
when any other part of the body touches the ground, or 
when one man pushes the other out of the ring. First of 
all they rub salt on their palms, rinse their mouths to be 
pure in event of death, and throw salt over their shoulders 
to ward off evil spirits. Then they step toward the 
center of the ring and commence setting-up exercises 
which are entirely a matter of raising the legs forward, 
spreading them outward, and bringing them down with 
tremendous force, at the same time slapping the thigh 
most vigorously. They then crouch, spread their legs, 
face each other, generally the right hand closed in a fist 
and extended forward toward the opponent, sometimes 
both hands so extended, touching the ground. Now 
they glare at each other fiercely, waiting for the word of 
the umpire. As soon as that is given each lets out a 
bellow and makes a spring, but invariably some wrong 
move makes them stop and go all through the per- 
formance again. Sometimes they don't even spring, 



I20 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

for, when watching each other, they see no special ad- 
vantage to be gained — and break up the attempt for a 
few seconds. But then finally they grip. The umpire 
begins his yelping, frantically dancing round and round 
about them, and they move about with an alacrity one 
would hardly have credited their ponderous weights. 
They shuffle and pull and slap each other, gripping the 
girdle round the groins with iron tenacity. This lasts 
a couple of minutes; one is pushed out of the ring or 
makes a bad step and the bout is over. And two others 
come on. 

Late in the afternoon the final set came on, including 
the national champion, who bore a little baby in his arms 
lost in a blaze of exquisite red kimonos. They formed 
their circle, presented the child to the crouching umpire, 
and began clapping their hands and gesturing in a manner 
not unlike that of the Fijians. By this ceremony the 
child was imbued with great strength — the champion's 
strength — and would become a great wrestler. 

Then they proceeded to eliminate one another, imtil the 
final bout. The champion and his aspiring antagonist 
met. It was a tense few minutes. The champion was 
the biggest man of them all; his opponent half his size. 
They glared, they pounced, they clinched. The tussle 
was interrupted by the slipping of the girdle. The 
umpire called time; the belt must be adjusted. But to 
relinquish the grip the champion had upon his assailant 
for a fraction of a second would be to lose all. He had 
doubled his arms roimd those of the other and brought 
his fists together in the smaller man's face. While the 
umpire was adjusting the girdle, you could see the whole 
energy of the victor so concentrated in such a grip as 
would have broken an ordinary man's arms. A slap on 
the shoulders of the big fellow by the umpire — and the 
two began to dance about again like puppets. Not 
many minutes later the champion had so turned the 



WRESTLING FOR A THRONE 121 

other round as to place him with his back to the 
ring. He maneuvered so as to push him out. He suc- 
ceeded, but the other yielded outward, overbalanced his 
conqueror, and brought him with him with one foot out 
of the ring ! A tie. 

Not so thought the crowd. A second of silence, and 
then there rose a murmur full of menace. There had 
been not a little 5a^^-drinking, and one or more were 
under its influence. One had been making himself a 
nuisance for some time, but no one ejected him. The 
patience of the Japanese is admirable. But it has its 
limits. At this sudden turn in the contest bottles began 
to fly, and those who supported the champion closed 
against the others in a riot. The police came in and 
soon poured the oil of their authority on these troubled 
waters, and the spectacle was at an end. 

The champion, fearing complete conquest, withdrew 
from the profession on account of age. 

Sumo, or wrestling, is an art almost as old as is Japan 
itself, having been known as far back as 23 B.C. Sukune 
was the first champion, and has been enshrined as a 
tutelary deity by succeeding wrestlers. There is even a 
record to the effect that in 858 the two sons of Buntoku 
Tenno chose that method in deciding which of them 
should ascend the throne. Wrestling has always been 
the art of the samurai who, not wishing to sully his 
sword in contest with a commoner, resorted to the 
tricks of the wrestler or of its offspring, jujutsu, to van- 
qtiish him. Wrestlers even formed a guild of several 
grades, the highest being composed of the elders, who 
were at one time second in rank to the samurai. 

Wrestling takes the same place in Japanese interest 
as does prize-fighting in the West, and is in consequence 
bound to attract only a minority. The vast majority 
must find their recreation in the theaters — especially 
the women, who would no more think of going to a 



122 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

wrestling-match than one of our women who respects 
her name would think of witnessing a prize-fight. The 
wrestling "fans " are lost on the busy theatrical thorough- 
fares. Here the crowd of an evening is so thick, not- 
withstanding the utter absence of wheeled traffic, that 
you shuffle your way along behind one another at a 
slow pace. 

From curb to cornice, lights glow in the night, entic- 
ing people on and in. Long streaming banners impend 
from bamboo poles projecting from the windows, an- 
nouncing the attractions. These are various — ^recitation- 
houses, vaudeville, dramatic performances, and the now 
universal movies. The first mentioned are the most 
easily accessible. They cost only five or ten sen. 

Here the communal atmosphere is again in evidence. 
There isn't the gulf between the stage and the people. 
It is more like a house-party in which those who can get 
up to entertain the guests do so. Sometimes the guests 
themselves rise to the occasion. In the meantime, the 
guests sit on their matted floors and cushions, rent fire- 
boxes and order tea, food, or fruit, and even the women 
smoke. Women and men mingle freely now, not as in 
old Japan. All call across to the actors, stimulating 
naturalness and ease. There is none of that taking 
sweetheart to the theater as with us — in Japan the 
family goes. Nobody is left at home. As cheap as are 
servants and as ever present as they seem to be, yet 
mothers never think of leaving their children and babies 
at home, no matter where they go and what the hour. 
Thus the theater is alive with squirming youngsters. 
They pass in among the audience and clamber up the 
stage. Artistic as the Japanese have been advertised 
to be, none of the crudities and incongruities of decora- 
tion seem to bother them for a moment. Amusement is 
not to be found on the stage alone, but is just as likely to 
be seen in the audience. On one occasion the "make- 



THEATER AND MOVIES 123 

up " of one little fellow in foreign clothes put all theatrical 
make-up to shame. His little trousers were full-grown 
pants. They were supposed to be supported by sus- 
penders, but for comfort's sake the suspenders were 
down, and the trousers were standing on their own 
dignity. 

What there was to laugh at on the stage itself he who 
cannot understand the language fails to see. The acting 
is anything but funny, and when it isn't very ordinary 
it is extremely vulgar. This is not preconceived preju- 
dice. That which is vulgar is vulgar whether done by 
a Japanese or a chimpanzee. Yet the people present 
were respectable-looking, though their laughter detracted 
from any such assurance. That is one of the perplex- 
ities of the Japanese nature. Examples could be given, 
but they would not be printable. Yet the people 
are universally known to be refined and gentle. And 
they are. Japan is rich in extremes, and you will 
see human lotus flowers growing out of the mud in 
ancient moats round castles of habit — to borrow a 
Buddhist parable. 

Japanese vaudeville is a mixture of drama and farce, 
as is ours, and the audience is of a more refined type, 
but it is at the cinematograph that the mixture shown, 
both of the attractions and in the audience, is most 
pronounced. The movie is the great leveler in Japan, 
as elsewhere. It is through the movie that Japan gets 
its notions of western life and manners; it is through 
the movie that it seeks to preserve its medieval 
morality. It is at the movie that it is trying to adjust 
its notions of family and the changes in the relations 
of the sexes. 

Nothing in all Japan gives one the feeling of having 
entered a hive more than the darkened cinematograph 
theater. The building is thick with tobacco smoke and 
human odors. The pit and balconies are crowded — 



124 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

not in the orderly regularity of seat behind seat, but in a 
perfect jumble of humanity, from the topmost gallery 
down to the stage and flowing over. Aside from the 
murmur of voices, there rises the sound of the lecturer, 
that strange innovation according to Japanese needs, the 
man who tells the story of the pictures in every detail. 
He often enough adds details of his own, not always 
mentionable, but on the whole he supplies that sixth 
sense, or perhaps the fifth, which is somewhat lacking — 
the sense of quick perception. 

The movies perhaps more than any other force in 
Japanese life is making for the enlightenment of the 
people and democratization. There the people see out 
into the world at large, there they are brought together 
under conditions not a little alarming to the conserva- 
tives of Japanese officialdom. So much so that the of- 
ficials have extended the censorship, exercising rigorous 
control over exhibitions. But there never has been a 
censor bright enough to note those subtle touches which 
are more dangerous to the grip of the bureaucrat than 
the obvious things at which he snatches. 

To a nation whose women (except the geisha) until 
within a generation or two ago were never found mixing 
freely with men in public the sudden opening of the 
homes was boimd to create trouble. With the advent 
of the movies the situation was aggravated. Naturally, 
men accustomed to seeing in public only approachable 
women would not know what to do when they found 
another variety. In the home, men knew well enough 
how to act toward their women; but in public how, 
under the circumstances, could they be expected to? 
The fault lies with the code which makes of woman a 
slave, to be summoned at every whim. There is in the 
home no especial occasion for our kind of courtesy. 
With no chairs, how should a Japanese know that it is 
kind to give a woman a seat ? Is there not room enough 




THESE WRESTLERS ARE MONSTROSITIES IN THIS WORLD OF LITTLE PEOPLE 



GULF BETWEEN THE SEXES 125 

for her to sit in her proper place? In the street-car it 
is quite otherwise, but how is Mr. Nippon to understand 
without a lecturer to guide him? So he jumps to the 
seat and keeps to it. Thus, one of the things which 
disturbs Japanese moralists more than all else is this 
breaking down of the custom of coddling men at the 
expense of the women. Much there is in the West, he 
says, which is worthy of imitation, but one thing is for 
the Japanese demoralizing, and that is the way western 
men do things for their women. Women would become 
so selfish, he urges — ^and fails to see how selfish the 
Japanese men have become. Thus, the street-car is a 
source of democratization — sluggish as may be the prog- 
ress — and the movie is its unfoldment. 

The gulf which exists between the sexes outside the 
Japanese home was artificial. As soon as the barriers 
were removed, the gulf was flooded by an inrush of people 
eager for amusement. Recently the authorities, with 
the usual absence of understanding of human nature, 
issued a mandate for the separation of the sexes in the 
theaters. How and to what extent immorality could be 
practised at the cinematograph they did not explain. 
Perhaps daring mimics kissed their female companions 
in the dark while watching the foreign lovers in the 
pictures. If so, the censors have provided against the 
danger. During six months of 191 9 alone they removed 
2,160 kisses from the American reels. 

Yet one never hears anything about dirty, unsanitary 
picture-houses and the dangerous overcrowding. 

The regulation was that no man may bring a woman 
into a theater, be she ever so respectable, and sit beside 
her. And the law feels that it has obstructed the change 
in a custom which it regards more highly than progress. 
But again it may be said that the political, moral, and 
intellectual transition in Japan will come about largely 
through the western pictures. Already the cinema has 



126 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

brought the woman out of her isolation ; it has made her 
discontented with her lot ; it has shown her what is the 
status of other women in the world. It is introducing 
a new chivalry in place of the doubtful bushido. The 
pictures of samurai days still draw great numbers — 
pictures showing dexterity in cutting off men's heads 
and leaving languishing maidens behind, forsaken for the 
sake of a liege lord. In the newer chivalry she sees men 
courteous to women beyond anything she has ever 
known; devotion to one's love which knows no greater 
loyalty. And the children she brings along, less set in 
their ways, and therefore less discriminating according 
to preconceived notions, will accept the standards of the 
one or the other which really and truly fit their particu- 
lar needs. Thus one sees in the picture theater, with 
all its drawbacks, a force for the enlightenment of Japan 
not to be ignored. 

Strange and inexplicable is the way of the East. At 
the very time the regulation for the segregation of the 
sexes at the theaters was promulgated a hygienic exhi- 
bition including sexual diseases was drawing thousands 
from Kobe's households. The promiscuous crowding 
was typical of that phase of Japanese life I have chosen 
to call communal. The small structure in which the 
exhibition was held squeaked with the weight of the 
people. They had to be released in batches or else the 
upper floor would certainly have given way. 

That Japan is keeping step with European nations was 
only too clearly shown by the extent and variety of the 
diseases illustrated here. In the matter of sexual dis- 
eases there is indeed racial equality the world over. 
But in the method of handling them Japan is in a sense 
superior. It separates the sexes at the movies, but 
herds them where they might learn the consequences 
for which they are equally responsible and to which 
they are equally liable. Further paradoxes are not 




SIGNS AND UMBRELLAS ARE FOREIGN, BUT CO-OPERATION IS NOT 




THIS FISH-MARKET WAS ALIVE AT 4 A.M. 



m^ i 


'^i 




0i 


! 




-■■■ ■^•^i *^-"*5l 




..i... 







WOMEN PILE-DRIVERS EACH WITH A ROPE-END AND A PATHETIC CHANT 




THE LITTLE WHEAT USED CAN BE THRESHED BY THE OLD-FASHIONED FLAIL 



WOMEN SHUT OUT 127 

wanting. It places this exhibition not far from the 
legally recognized restricted districts, it exhibits the 
effects of sexual error in the most certain forms, it mixes 
home hygiene with personal hygiene. But the doors to 
political meetings are shut to women. 

Follow the social life of the Japanese and you will 
find that, undemonstrative as he may be, he is absorbing 
much more than we think. 
9 




VIII 

CRAFTSMANSHIP 

'HE Japanese is in a sense open to conviction 
when the change asked of him is not too 
obvious. But in the matter of creative 
activity his unwillingness to yield is most 
exasperating. He is ready to lose your 
trade rather than alter his method one iota. In other 
words, he is polite enough to listen to you and camou- 
flage his interest, but try to bind him to it and you find 
him a conservative to the core. 

True as it may be that the Japanese unmachine-like 
processes are more humane, their methods remind me of 
the ways of ants and bees. They cannot do things 
single-handed. A little job to be done is attacked by a 
group, each one working in his own way, regardless of the 
labor or method of the other. This is true of the house- 
holder, but no less so of the trader and craftsman. 

The family relationship clings like a canker to his pre- 
ternaturally slow and docile workm.anship. This com- 
munal atmosphere issues from the stores as perceptibly 
as does the stock which is for sale. It pervades all of 
the lesser industries. It is the cause of so much of the 
imnecessary labor foimd hanging round the shops. 
Proprietors will keep members of their families on hand, 
though they are not earning the air they breathe. 

Japan is not yet so industrialized that the break-up of 
the family in trade may be said to have taken place. 
The home and the business are still so closely connected 



THE COMMUNITY IN TRADE 129 

that association with the one throws light upon the other, 
and vice versa. With the shop as the front part of the 
home and the members of the family as the laborers, 
one obtains at a glance the effects of the one on the other 
and insight into social conditions elsewhere obscured. 
Until that intimacy is broken up, efficiency in its human 
sense, and not merely in the sense of turning out great 
quantities of products, is impossible. 

For instance, there seem to be no regular hours of 
labor except as controlled by fatigue. And side by side 
with the usefully employed will be seen, day and night, 
idlers, and the shifting from one to the other — from 
idleness to industry — seems a matter of volition. 

Coming from an extended visit in Australia and New 
Zealand, where everything regarding labor was circum- 
scribed — where labor was enforced along with idleness, 
and leisure was cramped with limitations, I must con- 
fess to a sense of luxury in the ways of Japan. In spite 
of the incessant whirl of traffic in things, I have never 
heard so much singing as on the streets of China and 
Japan. Men and boys rush pell-mell through the 
streets, yet peace seems to abound within them or they 
would not sing so freely. The chantey is not yet a thing 
of the past in Japan. They chant while flattening a 
repair in the road, or while pulling a rope with a weighty 
burden, or shifting a rock of several tons' weight. At all 
tasks they work in common and ease each other's 
burden by chanting. Modem industrialism has so 
completely individualized our tasks that real co-opera- 
tion is a thing of the past. Not so in Japan. 

That, I believe, is the secret of toil in Japan. There 
are girls v/orking everywhere, but in the department 
stores, amid all the noise of "auctioneers" and hammers, 
I have time and again seen something no floorwalker in 
twentieth-century New York could tolerate for a moment 
and keep his job. A girl, on her knees in Japanese 



I30 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

fashion, but doubled over as in prayer, the world and 
its wares glittering and shuffling round about her — 
fast asleep. Pathetic? Indeed! Heartrending! But 
she slept. How many seconds of the eight or nine hours 
of our department-store girl's day could she spend in 
sleep unmolested, no matter what her condition? It is 
this seeming freedom which is more dear to the Japanese 
laborer than all laws of economy. 

Take the boy, howling with a larynx almost gone, 
pounding with a leather "hammer" upon the table 
before him. He looked tired. But he felt grown-up. 
Child labor is wrong, and we have nothing to brag of in 
that way ourselves, but mere suppression is an uncertain 
remedy. Another boy might prefer to howl his lungs out 
on the playground. Japanese boys take to their tasks 
with a sobriety amazing and perplexing to the foreigner. 

This communal flexibility, the outgrowth of the 
family connections of labor and industry, affords an easy 
transition from labor to leisure which, wasting in material 
results, is a gain in life. 

Take, for instance, the handicraftsmen. Contact with 
the actual maker of things is a delight to the arrival from 
the West. If you want a table, you simply go to a 
furniture dealer and order what you wish. Shoes, 
clothing, well-nigh everything can be done according to 
fit or order. The work is done with a certain amount of 
finish of which you had had no anticipation. But 
though there are many who regard the workmanship of 
the Japanese cabinet-maker and boot-maker as of as 
good quality as anything done in the more industrialized 
parts of the world, there is much that is unacceptable. 
Specialization in the way of ready-made goods has at 
least this virtue — you see them and buy them or reject 
them without loss of time. In Japan, if you have 
plenty of patience, you may after three or four attempts 
succeed in getting just what you ordered. Whatever 



SOUL AND SOULLESSNESS 131 

gain one has in the pleasure of feeling the hand of the 
artisan in his desk or chair is lost in the irritating delays 
which invariably go with their acquisition. The patience 
wasted in constantly turning up to find things made a 
little differently from what you asked for, or delayed 
day after day, is a strain on one's temper. It is a shock 
to one's sense of timeliness and precision. You never 
can get the simplest thing done on the moment. I once 
had a leather case polished, but part of it was left undone 
— ^just a few inches of strap. I called the leather- 
maker's attention to this, but he reduced the total 
cost of the job by 30 per cent rather than do it that 
moment. The simplest little task is deferred — the 
dealer invariably asking two or three days for time in 
which to do it. Delay is chronic. I have yet one 
pleasure to experience in Japan — the exception to this 
rule. 

One's life in the Orient is one continuous process of 
hunting down such details as in the ordinary world seem 
to look after themselves. And the most amazing feature 
of it all is the bland indifference of the native to your 
discomfiture. If a thing doesn't suit you, even though 
you ordered it — you needn't take it. Japanese dealers 
will let you go away without making a purchase rather 
than effect the simplest readjustment to your needs. I 
had ordered a flat-top table desk with green-felt cover, 
but found the felt had not been tucked in properly. 
The man had stained it to suit my special requirements, 
yet he preferred to take it back rather than finish it off 
to suit me. ''Shikata ga nail" Oh, the sound of that 
agglutinated negative always accompanied by a shrug! 
*'It can't be helped!" "Way of doing is not!" "Re- 
source or alternative is not !" And indeed there is not — 
not that nor anything else. Alternative? Plead and 
see yourself scorned without mercy. Threat? Only 
to know that the junsa, or policeman, would put you 



132 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

through the third degree and then leave you as little 
satisfied as before. You cannot punch them, you can- 
not warn them, you cannot **do" them. ''Shikata ga 
nair' Fate never rewarded western efficiency or 
American training never to say "I can't" with a more 
immovable motintain of indifference. 

You enter a store and stand and stare for as long as 
you have patience, while the proprietor squats in- 
differently on the mats. Then you ask for the thing 
you want. He says he hasn't it in stock. At first, 
inexperienced foreigner, you go out; but soon you learn 
to look for yourself. In most cases it is before his very 
eyes. One might continue in this vein without end, 
coming finally to incidents which accumulate into the 
trials of the foreign exporter, who knows when he places 
a contract that the goods will not be produced on time 
nor finished according to order. Oh, of course there are 
exceptions. But these exceptions are generally of a 
class which belongs in one's first days in Japan. 

No contract, except with the most specialized concerns, 
such as the big dockyards and steamship companies, is 
of any value. Most manufacturers take on as much 
work as they can promise in a lifetime, and depend on 
your having waited too long for them to produce the 
goods to be able to go elsewhere for duplication. The 
case of the young American boy sent out to represent 
an American brush concern is typical. He ordered 
forty thousand toothbrushes, which were promised for 
a set date. They were not ready. Threats of suit and 
withdrawal were of no avail. When the brushes finally 
came they were a quarter of an inch shorter in the 
bristles than contracted for. 

The Nipponese tradesman and craftsman is hypnotist 
in method. He tries to impress you with his indifference. 
In the Oriental's life there is much of elasticity, of 
flexibility, and greater humanity. But from the point 



PRAYER AND LABOR 133 

of view of method it fails. Waste of labor is a curse, 
and in Japan the sheer frittering away of human toil is 
heartrending. And at every turn the waste is evident. 
Every shop has half a dozen — and more — of worthless 
helpers about. The proprietor keeps them because he 
hasn't the heart to discard them. So that instead of 
becoming self-supporting they hang about, waiting for 
support. Yet, though many pray for fortunes, no people 
in the world believe so ardently and sincerely in the 
value of elbow grease as a means of securing their 
wants as the Japanese. 

For example. A certain brush-factory in Kobe was 
organized by a Japanese evangelist to give labor to some 
poor in whom he was interested. He succeeded in 
getting others interested, including a foreigner. The 
money was invested, the building rented at a very low 
rental. Good ! But so poor was it in structure that it 
required constant alteration and repair to make it suit- 
able. The meager funds were soon absorbed in this 
frittering — twenty yen a month for rent, seven hundred 
yen for repair. The foreigner kept his eyes on the way 
it was being worked. He would come in to find twenty 
women doing nothing, but they would rush wildly at 
something the instant he entered. Upon inquiry he 
was told that these poor women were being kept on 
hand, though there was no work for them to do, simply 
because later on they would be wanted. So that 
instead of putting the undertaking on a firm basis, the 
funds were again being frittered away. The foreigner 
withdrew, and the evangelist had the pleasure of posing 
as a martyr financially. 

In most cases it does not end so simply, and there are 
misunderstanding and enmity — ^for the Japanese is the 
most obstinate creature in the world. He is absolutely 
unyielding in his adherence to "Japanese way" as the 
summum bonum of human ingenuity. 



134 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

The Kobe business man, especially during the war, had 
so completely changed his color as to have become 
unrecognizable according to the categories of the special- 
ists in Japanese traits and characters. Brusk, impu- 
dent, offensive, he treats the foreigner with contempt, 
except where he finds it more advantageous to be polite. 
Clerks, waiters, tramcar conductors, and station boys 
all co-operate with the trader to show the foreigner how 
little they respect him and how contemptuous they can 
be. This refers to the Kobe people mainly. The con- 
sensus of foreign opinion will bear me out. Kobe is the 
narikin of Japanese cities, the upstart of ports for 
ocean traffic. And the Japanese people themselves will 
speak in this vein of the Kobeite. 

It is hard to be consistent in one's averages of national 
traits. I wander about in a maze of perceptions and 
leanings. How can one condemn with sweeping state- 
ments whole peoples, or praise them without equal 
qualifications? You come upon certain individuals, and 
their gentleness, the pleased expressions, and curious 
glances sweep away all mistrust and doubt. Buy a 
cake and come back for more and you find that you 
have awarded the maker a gold medal which she wears 
quite modestly on her heart. The old man who spends 
his days up to late hours sharpening a crude blade which 
comprises the Japanese razor is pleased and happy that 
I, a foreigner, buy one from him for fifteen sen instead 
of ten, which he would have asked of a fellow-citizen of 
his. Thus, here and there one touches the communal 
nerves of the nation. 

The individual craftsman or tradesman is no more 
variable and communal than is the manual day laborer. 
The spirit underlying the labor situation in Japan is the 
same for the industrial worker as it is for the family 
shopkeeper. 

As yet the ist of May has found no echo in Japan. 



NO LABOR DAY 135 

As far as labor is concerned, it seems barely to have 
emerged from feudalism. Go through one of the great 
dockyards if you wish to see this same clinging, swarm 
activity in full swing. Division of labor along paths 
at right angles is still wanting. There seems to be no 
order, no plan, no arrangement, just a mass of workers, 
each attacking a job with the instinct of the ant and bee. 
The men move amid the scraps and skeleton construc- 
tions without obvious ordering, as though without duties. 
Food- venders with their baskets sit at ease behind their 
products in and about the works. The crowds about 
them reach for the buns and bean-cakes, pay their sen 
or two, and lounge as they munch them. 

But they turn out the work. No seeming outward 
struggle, yet the work is done. Ships stood about, un- 
finished skeletons, their destiny written on paper and 
their hour of completion as certain as childbirth. The 
calm, indifferent, almost lazy-looking workmen filled 
every rib-space and alley, an atmosphere of patient, 
catlike watchfulness permeating all. Some of these 
days they will go on strike, thought I, and Japan will 
throw off cheap labor as it did serfdom — and the world 
will marvel. 

One thing more than all else tends to perpetuate cheap 
labor and its consequent degradation of Japan, and 
that is the female coolie. Not until Japan raises the 
status of its women can she hope to be taken into the 
comity of nations as an equal. No standard is so much 
in need of improvement as that of the woman in Japan. 
Doubtless were the women of Japan more the equals of 
their men in political and social life such sights as women 
laborers driving stakes into the ground would not be 
seen. Fixed to an improvised tripod was a pulley from 
which hung an iron weight. About fourteen women 
and one meek, lost male stood off in a broken circle, 
each gripping a straw-rope end. One of the lot chanted 



136 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

some song, in a not unpleasant voice, and when she 
finished they all pulled on the ropes, repeating the 
chantey and dropping the weight upon the pile. Their 
voices were not laden with complaint. They seemed to 
think Httle of the meanness of their lot, for their faces 
showed no signs of worry. It seemed as though they 
thought more of the blessing of this one arrangement at 
least — that the song could not be denied them and that 
it lifted them beyond the sphere of their twice-weighted 
existence. And gradually the stake went deeper and 
deeper into the earth. 

One cannot feel sad for them, for they do not seem to 
feel sad for themselves. Yet I could not but wish for 
some other arrangement. Faces broken up with sores 
and eruptions, their spirit was yet satisfied with a 
simple chant. So they worked half a century ago 
pulling on a rope made of their own black hair, lifting 
the pillars of a magnificent temple from whose highest 
rewards they were excluded. 

American women, so bold and self-assertive, claiming 
equal rights with men in every walk of life — why, they 
are dolls and darlings compared with these self-effacing 
little creatures, who toil away at the most arduous 
tasks and accomplish that for which we have devised 
monster machines, simply because our women wouldn't 
do them for us. It seems that women became lazy 
in the old matriarchal period, and began to goad men 
on to doing things for them. Having been filled with 
dream-tales from their cradles up, taught to worship and 
reverence womankind, and gradually fooled into using 
their minds, men invented all sorts of contrivances in 
order to get out of the doing of heavy things which 
mother diplomat used to do for them. 

But not so in Japan. Here the woman still sub- 
mits to being man's machine. She is everything from 
mother to manufacturer. But I see a gleam of hope. 



THE CLAN SPIRIT 137 

Though she is not above being his equal in every 
task, still I have seen her follow the little cart her 
virtuous spouse was pulling, with one hand on the load, 
the other holding a silk parasol over herself. And al- 
ready her little daughter proves herself the future woman 
of a free Japan, for she trudges along — 'twould never do 
not to be along — ^without even a finger on the burden. 

Again the family! One can never get away from it. 
What need is there of unions when life is knit so closely 
by ties of blood, when whole families form the foundation 
for all corporate activities ? The ramifications are even 
more far-reaching than that. Not only are gilds a part 
of modem industrial Japan, but even the clan has sur- 
vived the change. Perhaps it is because there still are 
so few trusts, but to be an employee of one of the big 
firms is like having been a servant or samurai or re- 
tainer. Workmen cling to their managers and bosses 
with the spirit of the serf or samurai — ^whatever the 
latter may have been. When asked how late he works, 
Mr. Nippon is just as likely to say that he and all 
employees wait around, even though they have nothing 
to do, till the manager leaves, though that be nine 
o'clock in the evening and they really should have 
closed at six. Strange this clinging to a leader! It is 
the starch of Japan. It is seen even in the schools, 
where good and earnest students will *'cut" with the 
whole class, though they may much prefer to come and 
do their work. And even when some do come and find 
the other students have absconded, they will ask that 
inasmuch as the rest have decided to play false to their 
school bargain — attendance — they, too, be marked 
absent or all be marked present. 

The spirit of the clan or of the class finds its finishing 
touches somewhat marred in the end by a fundamental 
weakness of which it is never conscious as class or clan — 
a weakness resulting in inefficiency, because more 



/ 



138 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

willing to have a thing done within the clan and done 
poorly than to send it out and have it done by a 
specialist. Thus you find an unwillingness to go out of 
the family, as it were, with tasks for which the family is 
not quite fit. And that element of push — which has 
been the making of Japan — ^is side-tracked by the 
element of cohesion which nearly ruined it. 

One reason why Japanese are failures as linguists is 
because they are too proud to yield the honors to a 
foreigner, really to listen and learn. And though 
individuals and firms could easily secure corrections in 
their correspondence and circulars and labels, they will 
issue absurdities such as the following rather than call 
in one who is not of their clan or nation. 

The first is by a zealous student. 

A? 

Gacific Mail 

Steam Ship Co., Ltd., 
Dear Sir, 

Will you please excuse this short note. For goodness' sake if you 
please, please send me that all kinds of advertisement. 

The other two are from the now proud and independent 
firm, too eager for spoils and applause to seek assistance 
in English from the ignorant foreigner. 

Sir, Hereby we beg to report to you a marine accident as follows: 
Toward the evening of . . . the heavy storm raging in the harbor since 
the daylight of the fatal day, gradually changed into a southerly one 
with still more violent force, and in the meantime the rough sea 
became heavier and heavier, until angry sea water dashed to the 
Customs compound forcing its way over the quay wall. 

Every effort for checking the sea water was done in vain and it 
flooded over No. i Quay with the result that the cargoes lying there 
as per attached lists sustained damage. 

Now this is a classic. It is dramatic and really good 
English, but when you learn that it is only a sea protest 
and meant to demand reparation in coin, and not tears, 



AN INCIPIENT POET 139 

for a couple of hundred yen's worth of goods, you wiU 
forgive the laughter it provoked. 

Particulars of the Accident: On the 29th of August, 191 7, while the 
aforesaid lighter was taking in at the starboard side of the steamer, 
the cargo ex the ss Colusa moored along the No. i Quay wall of the 
Kobe Customs, the Easterly wind, which was blowing since the 
morning, unexpectedly began to assume more violent force, making 
the sea quite rough. 

During the heavy sea, the said lighter was laboring very hard and 
was often compelled to collide against the steamer's side, with the 
result she sustained damages to her body, there from the sea water 
ran into the lighter. 

Seeing the dangerous state of the lighter, the lightermen engaged 
themselves to check and ladle out the water and at the same time our 
steam launches hurried to the spot of the accident and cooperated 
in pumping out the water running in, towing the ill fated lighter 
toward the nearest quay wall in order to salve her. But on her way 
thereto the salvage work being of little effect, the said lighter became 
full of water and in consequence met the fate of sinking to the sea 
with all her cargo at the middle part (120 feet off the Quay wall) 
between No. i Quay and No. 2 Quay, and this is certified to by 
the "Mayor of Kobe City." 

Verily a poet was at work in a stevedoring firm at the 
handsome salary of thirty dollars a month. 

I cannot close without a special word for a type of 
laborer who puts all clannishness to shame with his 
haughty individuality, the symbol of independence and 
the free-lance of industrialized bushidodom — the rick- 
shaw man. 

For him there is progress in Japan. How the disap- 
pointment and regret must have smouldered in the 
breast of the old rickshaw man, whom his foreign em- 
ployers christened Jimmy, when he saw about him the 
wealth his fellow-runners were piling up day by day or 
heard of the advancement of some to the rank of 
chauffeur. He had been for fifteen years or more the 
runner for this endogenous firm. He was a pioneer, a 
venturesome fellow seeking new worlds to conquer. 



140 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Now, short and withered, he still sparkled with surprise 
when he saw his former boss. Instantly he hurried 
round the counter and without a word began bowing 
and bowing, till recognition came in: "Hello, Jimmy!" 
and the speaker turned to his equal again. 

The jinrikisha, though an innovation in Japan, invented 
by a missionary, is the source of much that is evil being 
circulated through the country, and also of not a little 
good. The rickshaw man it is who panders to all the 
vices, knows where the prostitutes live and urges his 
customers to patronize them. Yet as long as you are in 
his ''cab" and he knows you know his number or knows 
that your friends know his number, you are safe with 
him in any part of the city at any hour of the night. 
In recent days foreign women have quite frequently 
been treated roughly by these pullers, but an easy pre- 
caution is letting them know you have their number. 
Every one being registered with the police, none can 
escape punishment. But even as the rickshaw puller 
is the source of much trouble, he has been the doer of 
some good. 

He figures prominently in modem literature and has 
even been involved in international affairs. In the 
account of the attack made on the life of the yoimg 
Russian Czar while he was visiting Japan in 1891, 
written by a popular story-teller of Tokyo and pub- 
lished in English in The Japan Chronicle (January i, 
191 9), the following interesting reference to the two 
cooHe rickshaw pullers is made : 

As a matter of fact it was really the coolie who was ptilling the 
Czarevitch's vehicle who cut at the offender; but in the above tele- 
gram it was reported as having been done by the police inspector 
who was at the head of the procession. The error was subsequently 
rectified; but just imagine how panic-stricken the prefectural author- 
ities must have been to have mistaken a jinrikisha man for a police 
inspector! 



RICKSHAWISMS 141 

And Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his Things Jap- 
anese, says that they "were forthwith almost smothered 
under the rewards and honors that poured down upon 
them, alike from their own sovereign and from the 
Russian court. One of them unites virtue to good fort- 
une; the other has given himself over to riotous living. 
Such is the way of human nature, and the coolie is as 
human as the rest of us." 

But the Japanese reverence for imperialism is biased; 
for once, it is rumored, a rickshaw man stumbled, and 
his mate put out his hand and clutched at the noble 
lady sitting in the *'riki," saving her from hurt. He was 
forthwith cut down by an officer, who thus put the seal 
on the inferiority of the rickshaw man, a creature too 
vile to touch the person of nobility. 

In clear weather and when I knew my way, I cursed 
and despised the jinriki ; when I was a stranger or when 
it was raining, I thought there was nothing lovelier in 
the world. I have enjoyed talking to the rickshaw 
man more than to many of the other Japanese one meets 
in one's movements about the country. He has a 
keener sense of humor, is more interested in you, and 
tells you what's what, and is sometimes quite likable. 
Coming up the hill one day, a coolie a little distance 
ahead of me, I saw an act of co-operation worth telling 
about. This coolie was without his ' ' cab, " but presently 
another came pulling a full ''bus." The burdenless 
coolie stepped up and without a word added his strength 
to that of the other — to the latter's surprise. And the 
soft patter of their feet seemed to say "sh, sh, sh," to 
their pleased inner selves. 

Ricksha wdom is not without its romantic side. 
Down the street ran a puller, restraining his well-sped 
car, his knotted triceps seeming doubly hard. His 
burden was a fat, round-faced servant -girl. Her keen 
satisfaction at being rushed along so rapidly, yet con- 



142 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

trolled by the sturdy little man, was an untold tale of 
romance. 

The evil side of rickshawism is commensurate with 
Japan's westernization. The cost of living rising, the 
coolie pokes his nose out of his timidity. He has become 
as independent as one dares to be in Japan, and just as 
impertinent. His prices range from extortion to high- 
wayism. And if you are a resident and he knows he 
cannot frighten you, he boycotts you for your daring. 

Once, after giving vent to a few lofty humanitarian 
sentiments in compassion for the miserable condition of 
the rickshaw man, alias kurumayasan, who pulled me 
up the hill, I felt as though I had somewhat lightened 
his burden. Why should he pull me? I asked. And 
asserted my conviction that next to the coolie woman he 
is certainly at the very bottom of human degradation. 
I listened to the sound of his feet as they splashed in the 
deep slush of Kobe streets, and to his heavy breathing — 
all the while sitting comfortably in my glory. But as 
soon as my journey was over I asked, "Ikuraf and was 
told, ' * Go'ju-sen ' ' (fifty sen) . I knew it should have been 
ju-go-sen (fifteen sen) and said so. He had more than 
doubled his price. He was obstinate, though he knew 
he was lying. I threatened to call a policeman. Yet I 
hated to appear to be haggling over a few sen. And so 
often enough he comes out the gainer. But he is losing, 
you reason, for if he charges too much you will not use 
him. And then perhaps rickshawism will cease to be an 
obstacle to the improvement of public transportation 
and public roads. And the puller will turn to active, 
productive labor, to fields in which he will rise above 
the degrading position of being a human horse. 

On general principles, the rickshaw is a fraud. On 
long journeys you are worn out worse than if you had 
walked. The ''cab" tilts you back too far, the jolting 
is considerable. Uphill, speed is impossible; downhill, 



g^^ i^i^tlflF^Mi^^^^H 


— ■ — T 




,,a^^%, -^^^H^E 




H^-ii%jj 


0^ 

»PpPP"i 


1 




i 


fflMJKv'W^*^^ 






Hi -. M^I^' 




t". M' .. 


^^J^^HMM^PP^P 


■MXT^ Hfff^^^Hi^H 


■i^*^" ' 


r*"^ " 


w_ 





POOR IN DETAIL, EN MASSE THE TEMPLE MARRIES SILENCE WITH MAJESTY 



^Nk ^ 'f^'^^Stft 


^ r 






" ^ 


1^ 


P ■ '/ 


^^ - "' -- 





AND WHEN THE RAM OVER THE STEPS STRIKES THE BELL WITHIN, THE 
EARTH TREMBLES 




IF YOU WANT ANYTHING, DON T VOTE FOR IT, ASK THE MECHANICAL FORTUNE- 
TELLER 




DON T DEPOSIT YOUR BALLOT IN A BOX — TIE IT TO A RAIL 



THE DOOMED RIKI 143 

it is dangerous. Many people have been thrown out 
and hurt or killed. And you are always quarreling 
with your ''horse" instead of petting him. 

The tram has done not a little to drive him out of 
commission, and will certainly do so much more. But 
in modern Japan, with its reputation for efficiency, the 
trams and the trains and the roads and the telegraphs 
deserve a chapter or a section in themselves. 

10 




IX 

THE HEART OF JAPAN 

•HE same flexibility^ of temperament which 
makes of labor and recreation in Japan 
such helter-skelter, though utterly human, 
activities, predominates in the religious 
festivals. Viewing it from the outside, one 
would never think that this loose display of the com- 
munal instinct was at the same time an individual striv- 
ing for conscious improvement of self. The crowd is 
no more unified by the fact that it has come to pay its 
respects to some local deity than by attending a show or 
building a ship. Fact is that if that show represents the 
spirit of loyalty shown by the Forty-seven Ronin, or the 
ship is a battleship and thus represents the State, the 
crowds are much more electrified. This has led emis- 
saries of western religions to condemn the Japanese as 
unreligious, and certainly they are so. But is that de- 
plorable? Only in so far as it leaves the unsuspecting 
individual an easy prey to the impositions of oHgarchs 
does it prove itself a detriment to human development. 
When the Church was the State in Europe, the human 
was neglected for the sake of the spiritual; with the 
State as the Church in Japan, the emotional is deadened 
to the advantage of the political. In both Church and 
State the desire for the material is predominant. And 
to that extent Japan is in no sense different from the 
nations and peoples of the West. 

Religion in Japan presents somewhat of a paradox. 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 145 

There is Buddhism, which is essentially communalistic. 
There is Shintoism, which, politically speaking, is rigidly 
individualistic but being at the same time a religion 
of ancestor-worship, it is definitely pan-psychical, taking 
all the world's people who have ever existed into its 
embrace. 

Most of the holidays and festivals which are according 
to Buddhist rites carry with them a well-defined human- 
istic import, but they are pretty generally conducted at 
a distance from the ordinary floods of Oriental life. 
The great majority of religious celebrations in Japan 
are Shintoistic. 

Chief among all these national holidays is New Year's. 
As early as August preceding my first New Year's in 
Japan the wife of my Japanese friend remarked, when 
I asked her what she did for amusement, that she was 
looking forward to the coming of the new year. At 
last the day — to which I myself had come to look for- 
ward with interest and curiosity, so much was it talked 
about — arrived, only to prove the folly of anticipation. 
My little housekeeper was flushed with sake, as was her 
servant, who stood behind her adjusting her obi for her. 
It was barely seven o'clock in the morning, but cele- 
bration begins early in Japan. It begins still earlier, as, 
for days numbering a week before, preparations have 
been in full swing. Professional mochi- (rice dough) 
makers carry their stoves and mortars and heavy mallets 
about the streets, pound their special rice into a tough 
dough, and round it off in big and Httle cakes, pale and 
round as the moon. Not a street or a shop in which 
stocks of these clots of rice dough do not lie exposed 
for sale; and not a house so poor but that it puts in 
stocks of these to afford weeks of overeating. And on 
the day he who has not put in sufficient stocks of food 
to weather the calm of indolence or storm of jollity 
which grips the Empire is indeed improvident. 



146 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

On this day it is safe to say every city in Japan is the 
same, a sameness which makes one despair of human 
inventiveness. Yet if ever the caterpillar of slow and 
unending endeavor is metamorphosed into the ephemera 
— ^the momentary butterfly — ^if ever a world is changed 
from being real simon-pure to Utopia, Japan does that 
"trick" on New Year's Day. A world which is never 
at rest, a world which is sweating with long-drawn-out 
labor, a world which sleeps, eats, and talks at toil — 
suddenly throws off the burdens of Hfe and becomes a 
flushed lily justifying the biblical parable. 

The New Year's breakfast is partaken of in common. 
It was the only day on which I, a stranger, was ever 
asked to join the Japanese at a meal in common with 
them. Everything served is cold — ready for the whole 
day's eating — except the sake (which makes them drunk), 
and the mochi soup, which is the delight of the year. 
There is cold lotus root, carrots, gobo (burdock), kuro- 
mame (black beans), konuyaku (a kind of edible root), 
cold omelet, kuwae (plant), renkon (lotus), mochi (stew), 
gomame (dry young sardines eaten especially on New 
Year's Day), mitsuwazuke (radish), kohu (seaweed), fish 
and egg omelet, dai, satoimo, daikon (radish), fxsh, koya- 
doju, bodara (fish), ocha (tea) and rice, yomomi, green 
plant mixed with mochi — all for breakfast. 

Breakfast is followed by visiting. The men start 
early, dressed in their very best silk kimonos, and skirt- 
pantaloons on top — the full-dress of Japan. It is a 
fine-looking world, such as one would like to see at all 
times. Each visitor among the men carries some little 
present or just his card (a recent innovation) to his 
friend, acquaintance, or business patron. He does not 
remain to chat, but just leaves his evidence of having 
presented himself, and hurries on to the next place. 
One has then done his duty and friendship is sealed. 
The girls and women show themselves only in the after- 



,.£*^i'r' 




1 ^ ^t> 1 


^n 


t"-i-i 




wr-c] 


UPB iiil-4i! 


TF 


■y^lP 



THE TORII MAKES THE WILDERNESS HUMAN AND THE MONOTONOUS CITY 

LOVELY 




I REMEMBER HOW ALLURING IT ALL WAS AT THE TIME 




o ^ 

w. > 

w < 




A QUIET REVELATION 147 

noon, though they have been prepared to receive callers 
from early morning. They appear in finery gay and 
exquisite in the extreme, a blaze of color which makes 
Japan the admiration of the world. 

Even in the early hours there is considerable evidence 
of safe^-drinking ; but toward noon and in the afternoon 
flushed faces tell that the exchange of cordialities has 
been made— not in greetings alone, but in hot intoxi- 
cants. And when the evening comes, lonely indeed is 
the sober man. 

There is one man in all Japan who does not know the 
meaning of New Year's freedom. All others have for- 
gotten what it is to toil. To one accustomed to seeing 
Japan never shut to trade and barter, coming out on 
the street is a surprise in revelation. The wooden- 
shutter doors have all been placed across the store- 
fronts, and long curtains with the family crests dyed 
upon them stretch from end to end of the street. Every- 
thing is closed — except to visitors, and these know better 
than to stay. 

But one man does not know what it is to celebrate in 
idleness. True, he puts on clean uniform and looks 
different, but he pulls his rickshaw just the same — aye, 
much more so. He makes money while the others 
spend it; he toils while the others enjoy themselves. 
True, he receives unusually large tips; true, he is given 
sake to drink and often has a difficult time trying to hold 
up the shafts; true, he is a dangerous puller to employ, 
but most of the patrons are themselves too drunk to 
consider such trifles. 

Few indeed are the sleepers that night. Eat, drink, 
and be drunk is the motto. The women manage to 
keep themselves more sober, though they would not turn 
down a full glass. Many of them play the national 
woman's card game for petty cash all night through. 

But the rickshaw puller pulls all night through — if he 



148 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

can stand on his legs. For him there is no rest. He 
typifies, more than any other, the cooHe. He is the 
dregs. The rain may pour, the world may rejoice — ^he 
alone cannot do so except in snatches. For even in 
modem Japan he keeps the world moving. 

Most other national holidays in Japan are little more 
than signal for the display of the flag. What they are 
holidaying over is often hard to tell ; reference to history 
alone would do so. In the manner and form there is 
generally nothing distinctive, and the impressionist 
responds but coldly. One, I was told, was a kind of 
Thanksgiving Day. The streets were ablaze with the 
flag — a round red disk (like the annoimcement of 
skating at the parks) against a cold white backgrotmd. 
Were the symbol taken literally it would be a case of 
rich and throbbing Japan in a world of icy nothingness. 
It is the symbol of Shintoism. Aside from these emblems 
fixed to bamboo poles with black bands painted round 
them two or three inches apart — the poles are tied to 
doors and fences, in front of each and every worthy 
household — there is no sign of festivity. Stores are all 
open just as usual, labor is just as incessant. Idle 
rambling leads me past a shrine. What a pagan mixt- 
ure — pagan in the absolute sense of the word. Be- 
neath the shadows of the edifices, within the walls 
protecting gods, petty traflic continues. What a medley 
of modernism and mysticism, of business and prayer! 
Yet, in spite of our preconceived notions and prejudices, 
one cannot but admire this Oriental frankness. Life, a 
struggle for existence at best, is a business matter, and 
religion should merely facilitate it. What need of 
offering grace over daily bread? Its possession is proof 
enough of blessing. 

I do not know how it was managed, whether the in- 
creased sales were shared partly with the priests or 
instigated by them alone. One thing is certain, the 



TEMPLES AND TRADE 149 

grounds in and before Ikuta jinsha, once bare and 
deserted except for the occasional visitor, were suddenly 
beset with booths and stocked and crowded to an amaz- 
ing extent. Buying and selling and auctioneering went 
on at a wild pace. The cheapest sort of trash found its 
eager customer; the most alluring picture, its admirers. 
Miniature show-houses, into which one gazed through 
large lenses, had themselves called to attention in the 
most interesting manner. At one table on a platform 
beside the door sat a woman, at the other a man. 
Each drummed upon the table with two thin reeds in a 
most monotonous way. Dull though it was, it took 
possession of you, the tripping taps affecting one as did 
Mark Twain's * ' Punch Brother, punch. Punch with care. 
Punch in the presence of the passenger." It possessed 
an indefinably subtle force which held you and made it 
pleasing. 

This buying and selling is the life of shrine and temple. 
It is amazing to see the trash being manufactured so 
extensively in Japan. There is buying and tasting, and 
examining without either buying or tasting, all along 
the street leading to the shrine. The crowd thickens. 
Movement is almost impossible. You are within the 
confines of the shrine grounds. Hundreds of bowed 
heads, clapping hands, and intaking breaths make of 
that inanimate shrine with its sealed doors a living 
reality. The coins clink as they strike the wooden 
grating across the top of the huge box — one, two, three, 
hundreds. Vast sums are thus collected, and the instinct 
of hope and desire satisfied. 

I stood, the night of that autumn festival, waiting for 
a friend, leaning slightly against the pillar of the large 
stone torii. Behind this same column a thin-voiced toy- 
balloon vender had taken his stand. His voice was not 
more pleasing than the sound of the whistling rubber 
balloons. But when one of them burst and he gave 



150 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

vent to an undertone of indignation, his poverty, more 
than his anger, had found utterance. 

The seventy-odd years of human life were here each 
well represented. No one had stayed at home. They 
passed before me, some noticing the stranger, some not, 
all moving with a listlessness verging on habit. What 
was there to lure them? Surely it could not have been 
for famish of trade. In no place in the world do people 
live so utterly under the influence of barter. Stores 
never close but when this world is asleep, and bargains 
are always being offered. One is always buying bar- 
gains. Morning, noon, and night, day in and day out, 
from year to year they have this opportunity, and this is 
but a flood of the same exchange. Wares which have 
been hidden away in the dark comers of the little shops 
find themselves out under the open sky, on inclined 
stands sloping to the ground. The wooden shutters 
which form the front walls of all shops disappear with 
the sunrise. 

What is it, then, which moves this mass that cannot 
be roused by other promptings? An idea? Perhaps. 
But that idea seems of its own accord incapable of ap- 
pealing, and must be clothed in the garb of exchange, 
set in a background of things instinct in the human race. 
Men seem to be timid in giving expression to even uni- 
versal failings in the far-off East. 

The very shrine itself is dedicated to the deity 
Wake-hime-no-mikoto, sometimes called the Japanese 
Minerva, for she taught the Japanese the use of the 
loom and introduced clothing. It was founded, legend 
says, by the Empress Jingu Kogo, mother of the God of 
War, Hachiman, on the occasion of her stay in Kobe 
en route to Korea, which she had set out to conquer. 

What is characteristic of special festival occasions is 
in a lesser degree characteristic of temples and shrines 
in general. The other famous Shinto shrine in Kobe, 



THE GEOMETRY OF CROWDS 151 

or, to be exact, in the old city of Hyogo, now part of 
Kobe, is extremely modern. It is dedicated to the 
arch-loyalist of Japan, Kusunoki Masashige, who had 
given his life in defense of the Emperor Go-Daigo, the 
unfortunate, when struggling against the strangling hold 
of the Ashikaga shogun. After the revolution in Japan 
in the last century, Shintoism was inflated by bureau- 
cratic processes, and this temple was reared over a grave 
neglected for five hundred years. It is now one of the 
most favored temples in Japan. 

Immediately to the right of the entrance to this 
shrine, which is surrounded by a great wall, is a deep 
well beside a fountain in a flat stone. The buckets 
used for drawing the water are like any old-fash- 
ioned buckets, but the tiny wooden cups and long 
handles — these are Japanese. A little farther on is a 
simple shrine. In these grounds one must put aside 
thought of guides ; each must see for himself and find his 
own inspiration. There is nothing either beautiful or 
complex, but there is something new — a massive 
turtle resting on a stone foundation, carrying upon his 
back a marble slab. As a symbol of ease and longevity 
it is not a mean conception. 

A little farther on to the right stands a most im- 
maculate-looking building. Here we are met with a 
most gracious invitation to enter — boots and all. It is a 
museum of modern sabers and ancient armor, old inscrip- 
tions and recent maps, a jumble of things past and 
present. No nation escapes either, nor does the visitor, 
as he leaves, escape being asked to contribute. We 
have been looking at the relics once the pride of loyal 
Masashige — now plain Nanko. 

Wending one's way across the trodden, grassless 
ground, past rice-cake bakers and roasted-red-bean 
venders, we come upon a circular crowd. Now I don't 
know whether it has ever occurred to any one, but 



152 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

crowds have their geometrical propensities. If you see 
a circular crowd, always be sure it is a magician of some 
kind or the Salvation Army. Circular crowds are 
always of a safe variety. I'm not guaranteeing any one 
against pickpockets, but against the crowd. Circular 
crowds are a sign of a show or a circus, as sure as cumulus 
clouds are a sign of rain. Conjurers and magicians 
(petty and political) — ^whether in the presence of a saloon 
or holy shrine doesn't matter — anything with money for 
its object creates a circular crowd. This is universally 
true. 

How about square crowds? Square crowds are less 
plastic, less generous. They must be confined or they 
will dissipate. You generally find them within doors, 
well-seated, orderly, and passive. They are of one 
mind — the square-deal mind — or they could never be 
maintained as crowd. They generally know before- 
hand what they come for and make sure of receiving it. 
That's what is meant by a square deal. They are found 
at lectures, churches, political meetings, and reveal the 
evenness of human mentality, its conformity, and its 
monotonous laxity. 

Then we have oblong crowds. These are generally 
demonstrative. Each that makes up one such wishes to 
be seen and so lengthens out the process. No crowding 
here. In oblong crowds every one feels himself a master 
creator, of extreme importance and attractiveness. It 
doesn't matter whether it be a protest or a funeral, fimc- 
tions requiring long wind and long faces stretch them- 
selves out in oblong crowds. 

Triangular crowds are always being harangued by 
some pseudo-savior. They must have a leader, a go- 
between, one who can draw upon all the elements of 
society for support. He must be sharp and able to cut 
an opening for the entering wedge of the crowd. Such 
crowds are somewhat dangerous, as collisions are likely 



THE SHRINE EXCEPTIONAL 153 

to take place, or else there would be no reason for their 
existence as triangular, ax-like crowds. 

There are, of course, rhomboid and hexagonal crowds, 
and those of all geometric proportions, but that takes 
me on into the intricacies of Shinto tenets — and there I 
must draw the line. 

The crowd I saw that day was a circular crowd. It 
was quite a safe kind, being then so close to a real, living 
god. He who formed it was rattling away to old women, 
idle men, and children, exhibiting and juggling cards. 
For shame, Shinto! The day was a dull day, and all 
other crowds, except that before the man splitting open 
large mussels, were not in action. 

At the extreme end I came to the shrine exceptional. 
There, amid columns and images, stand two bronze 
horses, riderless and unsaddled. They might even be 
wild — but they are ultra-modem. Within the sacred 
of sacreds is a large, obsolete cannon. Obsolete and 
still so yoimg. Why, it can't be more than twenty 
years old ! So soon to be supplanted ! What a mockery 
of youth! Yet here it stands, as much neglected and 
useless as the shrine it plays at protecting. It has come 
from the country of the Czar, himself now obsolete. 
It was his when he thought fit to fight the Japanese. 
He must have bought it from American or English 
capitalists. Will they, too, become obsolete some day ? 

The shrine? No worshiper is present. Two glass 
candle-cases, a wooden box large enough to house the 
contents of a good-sized mint, with wooden bars across 
the V-shaped top, show the confidence the priests have 
in ancestor- worship. Its open slits call for contributions 
like hungry mouths. Great expectations! Lighted 
candle sheds expose to ridicule or in pride the donators. 

A man arrives, purchases a red candle, lights it, 
presses it on to the nail-stand, drops a coin into the 
** grave," and approaches the shrine to pray. And while 



154 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

he is bent forward, drawing in his breath and clapping 
three times, the two Httle urchins who sell candles in 
the stall to the right are learning their lesson in heat and 
sensitiveness over the flame of another candle. Skeptics ! 
Sacrilegious urchins ! One actually snuffs out the flame by 
placing his palm over it. Scorched but hilarious. Imps! 

All the while the old man draws in his breath, hissing, 
rising, claps three times, and turns to the left and round 
to the rear of the shrine. Again he claps his hands 
three times, again squats on his haunches, mumbles and 
draws his breath, then rubs the cheeks of his seat most 
exactly and according to form, rises, claps three times, 
and proceeds farther round to the front again. He has 
circumscribed the shrine. Here again he formalizes, 
rises, claps, claps, claps before a stone image at the left, 
a stone image at the right, kneels and claps as he passes 
out — absolved. 

A young girl enters the inclosure. For her no need 
of candles, or perhaps she can't afford any. She hurries 
through. Perhaps, being female, she has done her 
share of mumbling, thinks that deity. Are there not 
two images at the gate wickedly said to represent male 
and female, the former with his lips shut tight as though 
impatient and anxious to say something, the latter with 
hers wide open — ^jabbering? These, it is rumored, repre- 
sent the differences in sex. So it may be that women 
are enjoined to signs, not words, in prayer. The deity 
releases them without verbal confessions. He has had 
enough. Or, let us give our better halves the benefit of 
the doubt. Being so virtuous and so fair, and he (the 
god) being a male Ancestor, their grace and beauty are 
in themselves sufficient to obtain his blessings. 

We move still farther in, nearer the divine residence. 
But to us the gate is closed. *'The god lives here," 
avows an enthusiastic young boy priest. He shows me 
the cherry-leaves and paper drapings he has just with- 







1 




'^X 








0- 


^ i-IT 







LARGE WREATHS OF FLOWERS FROM THE MOURNERS 



HHfelW 




fjfi^^^4 


ff J^^JlPI^ 


na^JSfl 


"^^M 4^*^ 


2qasft^-*i^ ^-Hi^^ii—'' 



THE WHITE SHROUDS OF THE LIVING SEEMED AN EMBLEM OF LIFE IN DEATH 



ENSHRINED IN TWILIGHT 155 

drawn from the offering. He comes out, but, though he 
speaks words in English, he cannot catch them when 
spoken, and, lest fury seize me, I leave. He grasps my 
hand most fervently, places both of his on mine, asks me 
to come and talk to him in English — and we part. 

Still I linger within the walls. The moon is higher in 
the heavens, the nights and days still chill. The great 
gateway to Nanko stands as no forbidding barrier, but 
rather as an open invitation to me to slip away from 
worldly ways. I have little time for institutions as such, 
but there is a longing which cannot be appeased other than 
in the quiet seclusion of some such place as this. Except 
for the hills, there is hardly a place in all lower Kobe out- 
side these temple grounds possessing so much as a tree. 

In the settling silence of belated evening the un- 
vibrant sound of clapping hands announces to man the 
utmost adoration of some simple soul. The marble 
lanterns with diffused lights, like sleepy owls waking with 
the darkness, the medley of relics, some shrieking their 
importance upon an inattentive world — all express some 
phase of human visioning. The flat -headed, leaning, 
yet ascending evergreens, said to symbolize mortaHty, 
stand gazing heavenward. Yet nothing is immortal 
except the desire of living creatures to be so. And every 
such desire finds its expression in some material form, 
only to be superseded by a subsequent ambition which 
annihilates it. 

The whole is not without its usefulness. The momen- 
tary ghmpse I caught, the sense of loveliness and evening 
calm — ^if none other ever gained a fleeting breath of con- 
solation from it, my having done so would have made it 
worth the while of the originator. And when it is con- 
sidered that millions upon millions in thousands of gener- 
ations have believed and trusted, mere denial seems 
futile. Yet missionaries come with the hope of obliterat- 
ing this spontaneous acceptation for a "reasoned" one — 



156 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

hope by argument, by threat and condemnation to 
swerve this Mississippi so that their wheat-fields may 
supplant the others' rice swamps. Sheer numbers alone 
should convince the perpetrators of the utter impos- 
sibility of success — unless their hearts are easily satis- 
fied and a single soul secured gives them contentment. 
Out of sixty million, one hundred and thirty thousand 
have been converted. 

The booths and stands had gathered in their wares 
for the night. All these bazaar establishments keep up 
the temple exchequer. This passing out of business 
left the atmosphere more hallowed. Not that it is not 
good to trade in human wants, but that human ways so 
often profane that trade. And there it makes little 
difference whether in God's name or in that of Satan, 
whether in the Orient or Occident. 

Left alone, one cannot fail to sense the quality obtain- 
ing. It lies beneath the glamour of human adoration, 
the clamor of human barter, even beneath the ardency 
of human supplication. The temple is not temple when 
the crowds are thickest, for then it seems to fail as temple. 
Rescued from this malicious grasping after gain of one 
form or another, which smothers spirit, the place breathes 
deep and draws in the sweetness of repose. Then it 
emerges in all its sacred tranquillity. Then the creature 
himgering for contact with creation achieves it. 

I looked into the empty, simple, meaningless shrines, 
passed the flickering candles of men too busy for devo- 
tion, doing it by proxy. I moved among the numicrous 
erections set to represent some phase of human want or 
yearning, and, pagan or no, I gained salvation for the 
moment. It was not the kind of salvation most men 
seek. It was more of a salvation from self, a losing of 
self in the perfection — eternity. It was a saving from 
imjust contentiousness and contempt — a salvation from 
prejudice. 




X 

SHINTOISM, OR THE COMMUNITY OF SOULS 

NE is not long in Japan before he sees a 
funeral. Soon funerals become so common 
that one pays little attention to them. That 
I should become a party to one almost im- 
mediately after landing is more unusual. I 
had placed myself in the care of a kurumayasan, telling 
him to take me to any place of interest. In coolie 
fashion, when you let go the ''reins," he goes home. 
The only place he thought interesting was a beer-hall, 
and thither he proposed to carry me. When he found 
that was not to my liking, he ambled on in disgust, but 
made for the slums. Then I had my first vision of 
Japan as it is and as I would it were not. The way 
led toward Kumochi, a district of Kobe then not densely 
populated. Presently we were before a structure of 
such mean appearance that, were it not for the gathering 
within its fenced-in yard, I should have thought it was a 
neglected shed. But the crowd within interested me. 
I ordered the puller to draw up. He was well enough 
content to drop his shafts to the ground and let me step 
out, seating himself on the footboard and looking on. I 
approached the gate wondering what so many people 
could be doing in so poverty-stricken an establishment, 
with little red-lacquered four-wheeled wagons earning 
their place in the world by transporting improvised 
Christmas trees from the homes of the dead to their 
tombs. No one stopped me, so I moved quietly on 



158 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

through the yard and into the shed. The bare earth 
floor left no doubt that mortal dust was being re- 
ceived again to the dust from which it sprang. But 
forward in the center of the shed was an arrangement 
w^hich even at this hour seemed to struggle against the 
mere return of dust unto dust. It was a collapsible 
altar upon which now stood some donations of food such 
as rice dough cakes, and an incense-burner. About six 
feet away from it, in the very center of the room, with 
his back to us at the door, sat a priest on his red-lac- 
quered folding-chair, mumbling away in a stream of 
pathetic incantations. Behind him stood an under- 
study, while all round the room squatted the Japanese 
male and female mourners. I noticed that only the 
male mourners took any positive part in the performance. 
One after the other they stepped up before the altar, 
turned their backs to the priest after having bowed to 
him, bowed before the tables, and put three pinches of 
ash or incense into the burner, and passed on. The 
last one stepped forward, bowed, and then opened a 
large scroll-like paper, and, holding it out straight before 
him, commenced to read in deep monotones. I was at 
first somewhat confused as to the real nature of the 
ceremony because of the absence of evidence of mourning 
or weeping. The mourners looked grave, but nothing 
more. But at the gate, altogether away from the 
room, stood a rather pretty woman, crying pitifully. 
As soon as the last rites had been done, the whole assem- 
blage broke out in smiles and chatter — one of the last 
smiled before the altar — and all passed out. At the 
gate two men handed each an envelope — even me — and 
for the first time in my life another's dying resulted in 
my good. Opening the envelope, I found two sen post- 
cards — and nothing more. The giving of presents is an 
integral part of Japanese life. The recipients disap- 
peared in all directions, and I moved on again, having 



GRIEF 1S9 

seen for the first time the spirit in which Japan disposes 
of its dead. 

It would be making a misstatement to say there was 
no show of grief. Japanese do grieve, though their con- 
ceptions of death should not invoke it. Shintoism, 
without being the vital religion in the life of the people 
that Buddhism is, nevertheless lays the foundation for 
emotional calm which precludes mourning. There is 
considerable difference of opinion as to whether Shin- 
toism is a religion of nature or ancestor- worship, and 
some even deny that it is at all a religion. But it seems 
that in the matter of death there is little to dispute, for 
whether the Shintoist says that the soul of his departed 
parent or relative goes to dwell with the myriads of 
ancestors gone before, or whether, worshiping nature and 
its visible forms and regarding every manifestation of 
life as but another phase of these — ^his attitude would 
always be the same. Not all the other religions in the 
world have ever been able to remove the sorrow of the 
human heart over the loss of a dear one through death, 
not even the Japanese. Without any preconceived no- 
tions about which is right and which wrong, I took no 
little interest in watching the Nipponese in this — what 
one might call the last and final phase of his communal 
life — ^and recorded impressions just as they occurred to 
me at the time. 

Thrust thus unexpectedly into the very midst of others* 

sorrowing afforded me that impersonal aspect of death 

among the Japanese which leaves one somewhat cynical, 

if not scornful. The artificial flowers and trees, the 

release of doves trained to return to their cages, the 

distribution of insignificant gifts to bereaved and 

stranger alike, are not likely to impress the foreigner. 

But it does not take much to awaken that kinship 

which is nearer than that of the accident of marriage, 

if the wanderer is astir in the land unattached to his 
11 



i6o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

own notions. That kinship was bom one Sunday 
afternoon as I witnessed the passing of a human life. 

I had seen him walk about like all living men. He 
was somewhat more striking in appearance than the 
usual Oriental, his long black hair projecting upward as 
though electric with life, and his quick hands carving 
simple, decorative lines into oak panels and staircases. 
From others I learned that he had been the one who had 
made the chair for the coronation ceremonies of the 
young Emperor, so unusual was his skill and artistry. 

But he had acquired his weakness, and one night, the 
craving finding no release in ordinary sake, he mixed it 
with methylated spirits. Half an hour after laying 
aside his work he was seized with convulsions and at two 
in the morning was dead. 

I saw him stretched on the bare mats of the laborers' 
shack. The ''funeral" was to be held at sundown. In 
the meantime the body lay in the sun-baked shack, 
unloved of life. Nothing can alter custom. Every- 
thing had to be done according to form. The tub-coffin 
was brought; his stiffened sinews, just a few hours 
before so light and easy, were broken at the joints; he 
was doubled into a sitting position, or rather into that 
in which he first felt the quick of life in his mother's womb, 
placed into the tub, and the lid closed over him. 

There were no mourners. It was not known where 
his immediate family was; he had evidently deserted 
it. I have never seen a more poverty-stricken funeral, 
and I imderstood how proper and right it is to have this 
seeing off of the dead for the sake of the living. The 
tub was set on the mats near the forward end of the 
platform-floor typical of every Japanese hut. The 
cover was tied down with straw rope, some odd rags and 
a coat thrown over all. In front was a niggardly supply 
of incense, a chisel belonging to the dead, and the 
unfinished bottle of sake. 



UNFINISHED SAKE i6i 

The priest came. A Buddhist priest. The yellow 
surplice thrown across his left shoulder was soiled with 
age ; the brown beads crunched against one another as he 
rubbed them between his withered palms. His prayer 
rose in mumbled monotones, interwoven with the sounds 
of his little hammer on the bell (not Poe's bell). A few 
minutes of this and the tortured soul was admitted to 
its heaven. 

The few fellow-workmen who stood about were 
gloomy of aspect. But when the priest rose from the 
nail-keg on which he had been sitting, a little bustle and 
laughter gurgled through them. A woman lit a tiny 
bonfire to purify the air, and scattered a few handfuls 
of salt as a charm against further tragedy coming to the 
place. The two and only pall-bearers fastened the tub 
to a bamboo pole, covered it with a straw mat and deco- 
rated it with a few branches, and moved down the 
hillside. And all the dead man had to comfort his dis- 
carded body was an unused bottle of sake they had 
placed inside the tub. 

Has he gone to join his ancestors and be a soul among 
souls, or is he still the carpenter making chairs for young 
emperors in that land of living dead whom the living 
are ever earnestly pursuing? To the Japanese it is not 
a world of night, but a real hereafter, peopled with pas- 
sionate beings each in his proper place. Though super- 
stition hounds them round this spirit-hovering world, 
their future world is as simple as their present daytime 
sphere. Is it accident or inherent opposition which 
reverses our lives in theirs? Where we don black, they 
slip our shrouds about them and move like specters be- 
tween the borders of life and death. 

Thus one dark night long after ten o'clock a number 
out of all those vast perpetual hordes gathered in an 
attenuated oblong crowd and passed along the river- 
bank to the cremation shrine. The white-garmented 



i62 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

people with their strange banners and appurtenances, 
their lanterns swaying in the breeze or throbbing with 
the steps of each lone carrier, presented a quiet spectacle 
not unsuited to the occasion. The passing of a human 
life out of the sphere of human interest and relationship 
seems more suited to darkness, and the white shrouds of 
the living seemed an emblem of life in death. It seemed 
as though arranged to call attention to things living 
and to lose things dead in the sleeping blackness of the 
unknown. You were aware of confidence unshaken, of 
life sounding its own triumph, of leaving to the beyond 
and the night the mysteries of what is to be. 

Arriving at the shrine, the coffin was deposited in 
state and the simple ceremony commenced. It was a 
dead girl, close within the unpainted palanquin of white 
wood, with its carved casing. Koski, they call it, or 
sacred sedan-chair, borne on the shoulders of four men. 
They set the car on the outside, then carried the coffin 
within. The bereaved family arranged themselves in 
rows upon the mats. The dim lights cast lurid shadows 
over the chamber. The priests chanted their rites, 
mournful, yet with a loftiness to which human regret 
the world over rises wherever it is sincerely felt. Vision 
and regret — the two idealisms of the human mind. 

One by one the mourners dipped their fingers into a 
bowl and, picking up a pinch of ash, deposited it on the 
incense-burner. There was now but a little baby left, 
and its mother brought it forward and helped it through 
the rite. It seemed too frightened to act, but, seeing 
nothing hysterical in its mother, did not cry. 

When the scene broke up, and each separate entity 
which we term human passed off into the larger shadows 
we call night, it seemed I had walked for a time amid 
those to whom the passing of that dead had left them 
neither fears nor fallacies about life. 

But still I felt that as far as these people and their 



IS THERE NO SORROW? 163 

attitude to death was concerned, I had seen but the 
remnants of unsuppressed emotion. I wanted to know 
what was going on down in their hearts. It seemed so 
unnatural that grief should conform so much to the con- 
ventions ; yet I could not believe that here was a people 
whose natures, knowing little of religion, knew less of 
fear of death and sorrow. The most vital religions in 
the world have never been able so to assure mankind 
of a hereafter as to alleviate pain of loss in death. 

I had not long to wait. Through a Japanese friend I 
had made the acquaintance of a gentleman whose name 
I must mention. Kitakaze San is the descendant of a 
family with a quaint history. Emperor Go-Daigo, 
known as the Unfortunate, tried, in the year 1330, to 
re-establish his prestige as Mikado and his power, lost 
to the Ashikaga family of shoguns. He failed. While 
trying to escape from Suma (a village about nine miles 
from Kobe, on the Inland Sea) to Kyoto, his imperial 
war-ship was hotly pursued by the usurper general. 
Seven loyal Goshi (samurai who lived away from the 
castle of their liege lord and cultivated the land), engaged 
in business in Hyogo (Kobe), put straw on a ship, set 
fire to it, and floated out with the north wind in the di- 
rection of the vessels of the Emperor's enemies. The 
wind carried the flames across to the others and set fire 
to them, thus affording the Emperor time to escape. 
He was naturally very grateful to these loyal seven who 
had no family name, and therefore gave them the name 
of Kitakaze {kita meaning north, and kaze^ wind), which 
they have used ever since. Most of the families have 
become extinct. The one known remaining family was 
that to which my friend introduced me. And even they 
are now only Kitakazes by adoption, the gentleman 
being the adopted son of the last of the line. 

For some weeks, whenever I came to visit, I found the 
curtains drawn across the wide doors between the 



i64 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Japanese section and the foreign room now so common 
in Japan. One day I was informed that the father 
Kitakaze had died. All along his illness had been 
shrouded in secrecy. Arriving at the house, I found 
the lower part — which is always the business section — 
screened off so that all material interest be forgotten. 
My friend and his widowed mother came down to see a 
visitor to the door. Both smiled as though nothing 
unusual had occurred, yet smiles clearly devoid of 
happiness. They asked if I would care to come up- 
stairs, and led the way. The foreign room was now 
severely orderly, and the curtains drawn aside. An 
enlarged photograph of the dead man was placed upon a 
table and I was introduced with, ''This is my father." 
In the Japanese room stood the coffin, draped with a 
gilt-embroidered red-silk spread. The bier had been 
arranged before the household shrine, which now was 
wide open for the reception of the spirit of the dead. 
The glittering brasses and brilliant covering eliminated 
all solemnity from the scene. 

The son dropped to his knees so quickly that I thought 
for a second his strength had left him. In absolute si- 
lence he prayed; then rose, drew two sticks of incense, 
lighted them, set them in an incense-burner, struck a bell 
three times, and made way for me. I went through the 
rites certainly with no thought of scorn or criticism. 
Whatever the form or belief, the obvious stoical suppres- 
sion of grief, so heroically borne, was too real to be 
subjected to questionings. And yet there was no sad- 
ness. The smiles amazed me. But I learned that they 
were too excited to weep during all the preparations, 
but that after all is over, the widow will sleep on a 
bed instead of the floor-mats, and will relax into the long- 
suppressed and much-desired spell of weeping which 
lasts two weeks. 

The body was cremated, and the funeral services were 



VISION AND REGRET 165 

held on the following Sunday. On Saturday I visited 
the home of our common friend. His wife and his 
mother were quietly discussing hair-dresser problems. 
Florence was to have her hair done up in real Japanese 
fashion on that night (her American upbringing had 
spoiled her) so as to be presentable at the home of the 
dead, early next morning. 

Sunday at the Kitakaze home was a case of incessant 
comings and goings. In front of the rather large house 
twenty large wreaths of flowers had been placed on 
exhibition, each bearing the name of the sender in large 
letters on large sheets of paper. One was pointed out 
as that sent by a Cabinet Minister in Tokyo. Red- 
lacquered wagonettes fitted out with the funeral para- 
phernalia lined the street for over a block. 

From the store all evidence of commerce was hidden 
behind gold screens of exquisite art. A few men sat at 
a table receiving visitors and their cards. Again the 
mother and son came to greet me with the same sad 
smile, a serenity which stuns to silence. 

I was taken over to see the temple arrangements. 
They had honored me, as the foreigner, by placing the 
cluster of flowers I had sent at the right of the urn, with 
my name written in large Japanese characters upon a 
card. The decorations were perfect, forming two wings, 
or arms, as it were, reaching out tov/ard the living. The 
fruits and food set in rows, two of each kind, though 
quite edible, stood aloof from the approach of human 
desire. 

How changed, how flushed with life the temple became 
later in the day ! Arrangements were completed quietly 
and in somewhat business-like fashion. The mourners 
seated themselves not facing, but at right angles to the 
altar-shrine, the sons and Httle grandson nearest the 
shrine at their right. The widow and daughter-in-law 
knelt and squatted in the third row farthest from it. 



i66 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Though still serene and saintly — no, more divinely 
human — the widow responded to the prayers more 
heartily than the rest, and did not a little silent praying 
on her own accoimt. It hurt, this stoical face of hers, 
so sweet, so refined, so drawn. What a soulful beauty 
she must have been when he, now shrived in the flame 
and secured in the urn, first thrilled her to love and to 
motherhood. And now, firm through her consolation in 
his life beyond, how torturous must have been her 
longing, held against reunion. 

Unintelligible as were the chants and prayers to me, 
the whole was magnetic. It awakened thoughts and 
feelings clear and wonderful as must be the dreams of the 
opium-eater. Yet the scene was not intoxicating. It 
did not overwhelm. It stirred me to thinking, thinking 
deeply, precipitately, and it seemed to wash away 
certain prejudices completely. 

Take, for instance, the question of wealth. I could 
not but be impressed with the lavish display. Nor 
could I keep from falling back on certain conceptions of 
economy, questions of wealth and poverty. Were not 
this man, now but a small cup of ashes, once rich, surely 
this great display, this convocation of all the priests of 
a temple with all the symbols prearranged on principle, 
would not have taken place. A poor man would have 
been given as much religion, perhaps, but not so much 
regalia. He would have been ushered into heaven with 
the same formulas, but hardly the same elaborateness. 
Happy that he lived, men would have trembled at his 
death. But with this man there was a certain gladness, 
a glow not altogether religious, impressive though it 
was. That is where a miracle was effected. For though 
nothing definite was said, it seemed to symbolize the 
ripening of life, the blossoming of man. It delights the 
world according to his achievements. 

Men look with envy upon the wealthy man, but, were 



WHEN A LIFE BLOSSOMS 167 

we to think of riches merely as a flowering to adorn the 
world, we would love its possibilities for human beauty. 
Each man is a magnet to whom is drawn some color of 
loveliness. That he draws beauty and refinement from 
the blood and flesh of his fellow-men is good or bad only 
in the use he makes of it. If in the ages in which man 
has been fired only a few have become great and beauti- 
ful, it is not their fault. Their becoming was only the 
prophecy of the greater becoming — that of all mankind 
having learned to love ** becoming." Pain and suffering 
were unavoidable in the unreasoned method of nature. 
Then mankind was unwilling to give for mere greatness, 
to obtain which it had to be drawn through hardened 
human arteries. The source of human grandeur is hu- 
manity, its flowering is their hearts' blood. A cramped 
stem means a withered flower-head. Those who have 
accomplished in life should save themselves from de- 
crepitude by rejuvenating the mass from whom their 
greatness has come, to come in freer contact with the 
basic human essence. 

This display was that final achievement of a man. 
He lived and drained the sources of life, only to display 
it all in an amassing of flowers and color and men. The 
beautifully surpliced priests, and chanting and mum- 
bling in the midst of the gathering, were drawn about 
his memory as truly as he had gathered wealth about 
himself. 

I saw that gathering in perspective, though I was still 
present. I turned it over as one does a lovely vase. 
I saw the crude beginning and the luxurious finish. 
The pot of human society was holding securely this 
human flowering. It had a meaning for life, not for 
the hereafter. 

This gathering of living men in the presence of a com- 
munity of symbols and at the time of the reunion of the 
dead into a community of souls was the most dramatic 



i68 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

presentation of Shintoism I had seen in Japan. It is more 
direct than, though not so elaborate as, the great festi- 
vals to which a whole metropolis turns out, nor perhaps 
as picturesque. But the funeral in Japan is as real and 
as personal as a marriage, and the dead goes on to another 
life in the eyes of the community as literally as the hus- 
band into the house of his adopted parents. It is not 
pure mourning, but an accompanying of the dead along 
the WAY. And when it comes to the funeral of some 
member of the divine royalty, the most vital phase of 
Shinto is manifested. When it is known that there are 
some eight million ancestral divinities in the Japanese 
pantheon,^ you at once see that it is no lonely road the 
Japanese soul has to traverse. And never was a cult 
invented which contrived to link so intimately the 
living with the dead, the parents with their children, 
and the nation with the Emperor. Whether it is a 
new religion or a new civilization — that is, whether 
it is Oriental Buddhism or Occidental Modernism — 
Japan manages to arrange some way by which the head 
of Shintoism may protrude from beneath the borrowed 
garment. So it is that the great Japanese Buddhist 
saint, he who taught them to believe that the Shinto 
divinities were but incarnations of the Buddha, sits to 
this very day within his little wooden shrine, not dead, 
but living. And so, too, is it that from beneath every 
accepted criticism of Japanese economic and com- 
mercial ineptitude emerges the refrain, "We are loyal 
to our Emperor." What matters it that this loyalty is 
not in the least different from patriotic fervor anywhere 
in the world; that love of parents is not nearly as pro- 
found as it is where the children are free as in the West ? 
The Oriental needs must exalt his self-hypnotized in- 



1 See James Murdoch's A History of Japan During the Century of 
Early Foreign Intercourse {1542-1651). 



A TALKATIVE SHINTOIST 169 

fatuation with himself — and Shinto is the personification 
of this need. 

Beautiful as it seemed to me in pageant dress, having 
seen behind the outer veil of stoic selflessness in sorrow, 
I felt the need of arriving at some understanding of the 
force behind it. And there, in Shinto — as in the dis- 
covery that a smile is no indication of real confidence in 
the life after death — I discovered that Emperor or 
nature-worship is no indication of real regard for the 
person of the Mikado apart from his position, or the 
love of nature aside from its symbols associated in their 
minds. I now determined to get at the very foimtain- 
head of this cult — the Shinto priest — and drink of this 
wonderful drug which would alleviate all pain and kill 
all sorrow. 

So I got my skeptical Americanized Japanese to ar- 
range for me to meet a Shinto clergyman. Now, when 
a Japanese says the word ''clergyman" it sounds like 
** crazy man." Once I even nodded and replied with 
conversation suited to the topic of lunatics, till his little 
wife smiled and corrected me with her fine, clear English, 
and I quickly covered up my tracks with a few pet 
vagaries. 

At last we went to see this clergyman and I spent the 
afternoon in as cramped a condition of body and emo- 
tion as I had never done before. During the session I 
almost wished he had been a crazy man, for then I 
should have had an exciting if not pleasant time of it. 
As it was, I suffered two and a half hours, shifting from 
one uncomfortable position to another, listening to a 
well-modulated if not enchanting flow of Japanese. 
And during the entire time I was of as little importance 
as a woman in Japanese conversational settings. 

At one moment I felt ashamed of having wasted my 
life on English. Japanese for the time was of more im- 
portance to me than any language on the globe. My 



170 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

friend had said I was to ask the clergyman questions. 
An hour and a half passed, during which not only did I 
not ask any questions, but my friend himself barely 
opened his mouth. Then came a pause, and again my 
friend said I was to put any question to the priest I 
could think of. But I had no more than smiled in anti- 
cipation of relief when the clergyman began again, and 
did not stop for another hour. Not a word of it was 
translated to me. I shifted, I chafed, I smiled to my- 
self, I even formulated a nice remark. I was going to 
say, "Tell him I deeply regret that I did not imderstand 
a word of his most learned discourse on Shintoism ; that 
I hope to come again when master of his tongue (his 
mother-tongue, I should say, for one could never master 
his) and listen to him all over again." At sea on the 
question of Shintoism, I was not going to stoop to the 
affectations of the tourist who, on the morning after the 
departure, plagues the captain on the matter of when he 
will arrive. 

But I might just as well have spared myself so much 
labor. He didn't give me another chance to speak. 
Having permitted his first lapse of a moment to pass 
unused, I was enjoined to hold my peace. 

Now then, let me portray my surroundings. The 
usual cleanliness obtained. The room is twenty-eight 
mats in size — that is, each mat always being three feet 
by six feet, the room is twenty-four feet from left to 
right (facing the shrine) and twenty-one feet from the 
rear to the altar. The altar is hung with strips of cloth 
in brilliant colors — ^blue, green, red, and yellow — and 
numerous unnamable other things. To the right of 
the altar stands a pulpit-table; in the center, imme- 
diately before it, a little bucket of water with a tiny 
wooden cup having a two-foot handle ; and a taboret for 
rice offerings. Over the paper sliding-door partitions are 
several hundred inscriptions of the names of devotees. 



TANTALIZING FORMALITY 171 

We are seated near the entrance, the altar to our left, 
the clergyman on a line with it, his back to the passage 
out into the private apartments. A well-dressed, im- 
portant-looking man appears and does all the duties of 
a servant, yet he has more bearing than the master. 
The clergyman sits and talks. His manners are ultra- 
mundane. He smokes his cigarettes and drinks plenty 
of tea. His expression is not solemn nor manifestly 
vigorous. He might be telling some romance or some 
adventure, for all I could tell. His face lights up with a 
smile, his laughter is hearty, and his delivery low and 
rapid. There is not the slightest formality or assump- 
tion of reverence in his ways. 

A man comes in — unwelcomed. He bows before the 
altar, repeats his prayer accompanied by intaking of 
breath, claps his hands — unnoticed. Having done this, 
he squats beside us in silence. Later on he breaks into 
the talk. He is evidently much at home, seems part 
servant, part master, yet looks even less of either than 
the priest. Later still he becomes more bold, even car- 
ries on a separate discussion to the evident distress of 
the master, who is trying to read aloud. The master 
stops, waits, shows his impatience, tries to begin again 
and to drown out opposition — ^he conquers. 

This little cross-play is manna to me. Other than that 
I am verging on an internal revolution. A struggle is 
taking place between self-will and this foreign formalism. 
I am on the point of rebelling, of bolting out, of kicking 
over the round, blue-enameled earthenware brazier 
called hibachi. I actually do upset something. It is the 
cup of tea which had been poured out for me, but which 
no one had asked me to drink. As it pours over my 
hand it is cold. The flood is mopped up and the flow 
ot Shinto wisdom comes all the more vigorously for the 
sudden interruption. 

I reflect on formalism. I hate it. If ever I entertain 



172 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

I shall urge my guests to the delicacies forthwith. This 
dragging out of the feast seems to me a cheap and paltry 
way of entertaining. Japanese formality seems to me 
less bearable because it is so informal. That is, there 
is seemingly an absence of formality, which leaves you 
quite beside yourself as to what to do. The host does 
not urge you to anything till the very last because he 
has all along expected you to help yourself. Not 
having done so, he insists on your wrapping up the 
sweets and taking them away with you. 

Then, too, everything is so exquisitely artistic that one 
feels it were vandalism to make use of any of it. One 
looks on without touching, thinking no more of putting 
one of those cakes inside your worldly self than one of 
the pretty teacups into your pocket. The three cakes 
placed on the tray He like three speckled eggs from which 
at any moment one might expect a dainty creature to be 
hatched. 

But so impatiently rebellious and destructive had I 
become that I challenged custom and art — I helped 
myself to a cake. I hoped the act would draw some 
attention to me, but it passed apparently unnoticed. 
Thus after two and a half hours of trying to sit lying 
down, I had not asked one profound question. Once 
my friend mumbled: **You must be tired. He talks 
too much.'* But his gentlemanliness forbade further 
protest. 

At last he called me aside and began a synopsis of the 
effusion. It was mainly that this man had some new 
ideas on Shintoism. We agreed he was not an over- 
imposing personage, but still, a man with a new idea 
is not to be scoffed at. 

His Shintoism was a conception of truth. Life issues 
from nothing and passes into nothing. Nothing is truth 
and life is between. Through this recognition of nothing 
of life and of truth he obtains his power. He is master 



A LA CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 173 

of life and fellow with God. Through his prayers and 
his recognition he can prevent and cure disease. (Echoes 
of Christian Science.) Six years previous his incanta- 
tions brought a man back to life whom a doctor had pro- 
nounced dead for two hours. His own father had been 
given up for ever by a doctor, but Shintoism conquered 
the consumption and he lived to seventy. (Echoes of 
Macfaddenism.) And then the father of another friend 
lay ill. He gave him a form of absent treatment and 
three weeks to live. (He died in only two, as the account 
of the funeral just given will show.) And all the time 
it never occurred to him to cure me of my backache, 
my boneache, and the weary spirit he had induced 
within m_e. 

As we got ready to go, the clergyman produced a 
number of Shinto fans with a prayer written upon them 
(echoes of beads) as follows, ''The spring leaves are 
rustling loudly outside the Shrine, Under the protection 
of God's cheering wind." 

And thus was my agony over. 

From all I have been able to gather, and from such 
authorities as have given much careful study, there is 
little of real religion in Shintoism. Fact is, little is 
known of its basic principles. Even on what is known 
there is considerable division of opinion, such a man as 
Heam regarding it as ancestor- worship, and Aston as 
nature- worship. Its pantheon points decidedly in favor 
of the latter contention, but its application is again as 
decidedly that of extreme reverence, if not sincere wor- 
ship, of one's ancestors. And the fact that the govern- 
ment is able to manipulate it in such a way as to maintain 
its hold upon the people through the awe in which the 
Emperor is regarded, the repeated piffle about his divine 
descent, indicate that in some form it is certainly an 
inverted anthropomorphism. (In a later chapter I shall 
show how it is being used politically to control the im- 



174 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

pulses of the people.) As I wandered about among the 
people I began to see clearly that this Shintoism was a 
force, by no means negligible, in their daily lives and 
actions. How all their communal natures found expres- 
sion in this interesting cult without in reality supplying 
any gratification to their emotional selves! It simply 
is the spiritualization of primitive clannishness reborn 
with the changing order now the rule in Japan. 

A religion without an ethical system, a religion without 
a hereafter, a religion which does not seek for material 
aggrandizement, a religion without art or edifice to 
stimulate its adherents, a religion without religion — 
still it has held its own against the invasions of twelve 
hundred years of missionaryism, only to be revived and 
strengthened with the increasing laxity in religion the 
world over. Lacking in all those features which give 
religions elsewhere in the world their hold upon the 
people, it holds these as the others have never been held. 
Even at the present writing it is undermining the faith 
of the one hundred and thirty thousand Japanese Chris- 
tians by calling them back to some form of ancestor- 
worship. 

Unpractised in the arts of intellectual hair-splitting 
and doctrinizing, the Japanese impulse is essentially 
that of the herd. It does not know what it is to wander 
far afield. Its heart yearns for some collective action 
stimulated by collective impulse. Actual worship, in 
its more universal sense, virtually is non-existent here. 
Rather is it the childlike ingenuity of one who knows 
how to hoodwink a doting parent into giving another 
check. Patronizing the departed is perhaps the most 
manifest practice. 

But that is for the other world. In this, enough is 
gained by simple contact with one's fellow-men, being 
brought into communion with the imknown numbers 
through a central concept, that suffices for all the general 




ON NEW YEAR S CARPENTERS DANCE OUT THEIR GRATITUDE FOR PAST 
WAGES AND PRESENT GIFTS 




ALL THE SYMBOLICAL ADJECTIVES ARE TIED UP IN THESE NEW YEAR 
DECORATIONS 



RELIGION BY RESCRIPT 175 

absence of moral teachings. Shintoism leaves the in- 
dividual conscience so free to indulge itself as it pleases 
that, costing virtually nothing, it maintains its hold. 
But because it is without recorded dogma is not saying 
that it hasn't any moral scheme for the welfare of its 
followers. The governments in Japan have always 
meddled with the people's morals. Rescripts are 
common even in this day, the imperial pronouncement 
on education, on morals, on charity in great part taking 
the place of biblical texts and pulpit sermons. Even 
laws in the Tokugawa era were not codified because, 
regarding the judges as the fathers of the community, 
the officials as its precepts, and the Emperor as god on 
earth, official conscience was regarded as sufficiently 
reliable for the administration of justice. 

We are led to conclude that the strength of Shintoism 
IS in the family spirit which dominates the whole thought 
of Japanese life. That this is superimposed rather than 
inherent is a little too early in the evolution of the 
Japanese — and especially in this work — to state right 
here. But that there is every indication of its waning, 
together with the disintegrating force of Pan-Nipponism, 
expansion, and absorption, is not in the least doubtful. 
Within Japan proper it is still potent. But Japan is now 
not an island empire. Besides having over two million 
of its people residing abroad, it has added over twenty 
millions of aliens to its dominions. That that is bound 
to affect Japan in a way exactly opposite to that in- 
tended by its politico-Shintoists requires no great polit- 
ical sagacity to foresee. 
12 



Part Three 
THE SPOKES OF MODERN JAPAN 




XI 

THE OPEN HAND 

OBE may well be said to be the hub of 
modem Japan. If, however, one wanted 
to be unkind, one could say that Kobe is 
the curve lying between the thumb and 
fingers of a supinated right hand, and 
nearest the palm, turned upward for receiving. Ac- 
cording to the latter the route lying to the southwest 
and Nagasaki is the thumb, and Nara, Osaka, Tokyo, 
Yokohama, and Kyoto are the four fingers. The index 
finger (Nara) points to the origin of the race, or mytho- 
logical Japan; the second finger, the longest, points to 
Osaka, or modem commercial Japan ; the third points to 
Tokyo, or medieval Japan; the last toward Kyoto, or 
what is left of classic Japan. 

It is this ideal location which has made Kobe what it 
is. It lies at easy distance from the interesting places 
in historic Japan ; it is the brains of new Japan. To the 
commercially inclined it affords better opportunities for 
exploiting the Orient; to the artistic and academic it 
affords easy access to all that is permanent in life. One 
can enjoy (if it can be called enjoyment) the ease and 
comfort modernization affords in Kobe; or one can, in 
a couple of hours, leave it all behind and delve into such 
romance as this quick-changing world still permits. 
To suit these various interests we shall venture out into 
these regions in the following pages. 

On one's way out of Kobe along the "thumb" one 



i8o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

passes through Hyogo, a city much older than Kobe, 
but now totally eclipsed and incorporated. At the 
other end one changes cars for the new electric Hne 
racing off to Akashi. I made an attempt to get out of 
Kobe on one of the early days of my life in Japan, and 
this is how it was done. I paid fifteen sen and obtained 
a return ticket to the next station. My limping in- 
quiries indicating that I was still bewildered, the agent 
rushed out, obtained a folder with map and time-table 
in English, and presented it to me. This cleared away 
the confusion, and, seeing what went, I returned my 
ticket, paid another five sen, and was ready to go to 
Suma. 

The train comes in. A young boy has mistaken me 
for another foreigner he knows, and we converse so 
freely that I have forgotten about my journey. Two 
little tots accept some candy from me in abashed silence. 
A crowd gathers round, observing every detail and glanc- 
ing at my paper while I jot down a note. 

How easily one settles into places permitting that 
worst of moss — conviction — to gather upon one's north 
side! That extremity, dampened and chilled by city 
life, turns green with falsity. City conditions and con- 
victions are often chill and sunless and are found among 
permanent country residents as well. But it takes a 
little rolling and basking in the sun on an open field for 
such accumulations to prove their worthlessness. The 
drossy conviction I had entertained during my first few 
weeks in Kobe was that I was seeing Japan. Yet I 
didn't know why I wasn't so well pleased with it. I 
moved about, peering pedantically into nooks and cran- 
nies, only dimly dreaming of some future where I should 
be able to go out into real Japan and see what I but 
vaguely conceived. The city stifles. It winds you about 
with its meshes and misleadings ; it makes you think you 
are aHve because it is always pinching you somewhere. 



SUMA BY THE SEA i8i 

As the train, crowded with people, moved along with- 
out jolts and rocking, we reached the scar between city 
and country. Is there anything more unsightly than 
the places from which trains generally emerge from 
metropolises ? 

The open country seemed remarkably awake for the 
first of April. Garden rockeries boasted of flourishing 
growths. Newspaper reports about an early appearance 
of the cherry-blossoms caused trade and barter to be 
forgotten and an exodus of the population of a Japan 
which has not grown up. 

A dreamy wakefulness lay over all. Even the chalky 
hills seemed to be melting away as though it were spring- 
time with old Mother Earth. 

Suma is about six miles out from Kobe. It is a placid 
seashore, part of the pretty, pale-gray Inland Sea. The 
government, which runs a tourist bureau, is alert 
enough to have set sign-boards at all stations giving 
information in Japanese and in English about local 
wonders, and Suma has two temples, two shrines, two 
battlegrounds, a detached palace, and a tomb. 

Nothing is ever done in Japan without feasting. If 
sports are held, booths to supply the visitors encircle 
the groimds with their streams of curtains with crests 
painted in blue against a white background. Suma was 
then celebrating, and thousands had come to take part. 
Few stragglers were at the shrines; the majority found 
races and games more interesting than death or the 
hereafter. 

Every turn in the pathway leading up the hill is 
beset with little shrines, whether one goes up one way or 
comes down another. I followed one worshiper who, 
obedient to some inner fear or craving, stopped before 
each separate sanctuary, bowed, donated three pinches 
of rice, saluted and mumbled, and passed on, to pause 
and repeat the performance at the next shrine. Such 



i82 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

patience (and indolence) is indeed worthy of heaven. 
No chance for the devout in Japan to worship by proxy. 
Buddhism demands substantial proof of devotion. 
Climbing is all well enough, but thousands of pinches of 
rice, hardly worth the thought of the individual givers, 
are bound to accumulate into bushels. And the little 
stone images sit sworn to secrecy, some with cotton- 
cloth capes over their shoulders, lost in reflection as to 
whom they are supposed to represent or whom they 
should protect. 

Japanese nature is as human as is ours. , It is but a 
stone's throw from the temple to the zoo. The few 
imprisoned creatures, tortured for the sake of human 
curiosity, sleep away their lives in helpless inanity. 
They don't even care now if they are being stared at. 
The secreted godhead, the priest, and populace pay as 
little attention to the staring tourist. They, too, have 
grown used to it. 

But I am getting a little confused, seeing so much and 
understanding so little. Surely there is a distinction 
between man and animals. Yet, one must eat. Obvi- 
ously it is a supreme necessity. Western people at 
sports might scoff at such coarseness. To eat anything 
heavier than popcorn or peanuts at a game would be 
debasing. But the Oriental is a more practical person. 
Food of every description is being cooked in ovens and 
in stomachs, food pierced by long, sharp-pointed sticks, 
boiled and frizzled, just as it suits one's taste. There 
is even a hotel on the beach of the Httle lake. It looks 
palatial. But oh, how lacking in Occidental life! 
One is ushered into a room by oneself and there left 
waiting for the cold, greasy viands and soups. I ordered 
chicken. It arrived post-haste — a most unusual thing 
in Japan. It surely must have been cooked a fortnight 
ago in anticipation of my coming. Why bother warming 
it? And there was rice and tea. All d la carte. And 



TOMBS 183 

my bill came to twenty -nine and one-half cents gold, 
at the then existing rate of exchange. 

I'm through with the living. Let me hunt out the 
place of the dead. ''Atsumori's haka, where is, please?" 
Alas! no one knows. I wander about like a lost soul. 
Is there no one in all Suma who knows that the tomb of 
one Atsumori is still with him? Alas! What is the 
use of having a tomb? People should bow their heads 
to the ground at the mere mention of so sacred a name. 
The way, my way, after perspiring efforts, is shown me 
and I wander along the sunny, dusty road. A coolie gives 
me marked attention and seems intelligently acquainted 
with tombs. Think of it ! Poor Atsumori, how indignant 
he would feel, how chagrined and ashamed! And yet, 
but for this coolie I should never have found the tomb. 
It stands just a few steps off the main road, now set 
atremble every moment by rumbling trains and screech- 
ing trolley-cars. Such intercession! Poor Atsumori! 
Frustrated! Certainly you had hoped for rest here, 
away from the confusion of life, here by the placid, 
swishing sea, and now to be so rudely cut off from its 
peace. 

Who, then, is Atsumori ? Not at all an unworthy lad. 
He was only sixteen when his head came off, like the 
plum-blossom which is cut off at the first of the year by 
the selfish enthusiast. Sixteen years alive, now six 
hundred years dead. Dates worth remembering. It is 
also worth remembering that when this lad found himself 
at the mercy of a powerful enemy warrior, he fought to 
the last, winning his victory in death. His enemy, 
when he removed the helmet from his antagonist's head 
in order the more quickly to slay him, saw that it was 
that of the boy Atsumori. Reluctantly he finished 
what he had set out to do, fearing the child might fall 
into worse hands, and then presented the boy's head to 
his father. After that he renounced life, entered a 



1 84 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

monastery to pray for the soul of the child whom he had 
thus prevented from leading a life of life-taking. What 
a sad world it was then! Yet men glory in it! And 
to-day little Atsumori is still venerated by other little 
boys, much more, perhaps, than if he had not been slain 
at sixteen. Suma-dera shows a few relics of the lad, and 
lads sing accounts of him with mischievous self- 
consciousness. 

I wandered back again. 

No, tombs and castles and temples and shrines — these 
are not the places of interest. They are only cumulative 
evidence — ^no more. I return to the living, throbbing, 
even though as often discordant as artistic, Japan. 
The fact that it has tombs and ancient shrines only 
attests its activity. Just as the real temple reveals 
itself only after the worshipers have gone, and the silence 
obtains, so is the tomb but the timepiece of eternity 
without tick and alarm. Above its silence hovers the 
historic incident, just as above the jostling, jabbering 
playfulness of worship lurks the eternal calm. There is 
no death without life, and no life without silence. Death 
is a deeper silence, and no more. 

Why is so much attention wasted on death? Simply 
because we don't live properly. Were there not some 
cankering irregularity in our living, we should no more 
concern ourselves about dying and after than we do 
about the condition of the church or temple or theater 
after our exodus. Does any one ever stop and shudder 
while at a performance because in another hour or two 
the stage will have become deceased, will lose its life? 
Because, when worshipers have dispersed, the church is 
dead? No, Japan is not richer because of its sepulchers, 
no matter how old. Neither its tombs nor its volcanic 
hills are the secret of its present interest. Our sorrow 
should be for its present failures, not for the dead. 

Just before the hotel, on the main street, amid the 



THE POISON OF PRUDISHNESS 185 

crowd gathering to return to Kobe, was a group of 
drunken men with geisha. The women were not in the 
least ashamed. Why should they? It was their pro- 
fession. Vulgarities unmentionable were enacted. But 
I'm forgetting. Every positive must have a negative. 
As to which is good and which bad, who can tell? 

Suddenly a flood of uniformed Japanese poured 
through the avenue of trees, shouting and laughing 
heartily. They were Suma's fire-brigade indulging 
themselves, and about a thousand little children, in the 
pleasures of a fire-drill. They looked like Robin Hood's 
forces transplanted to Japan. At the edge of the little 
lake they arrayed themselves in form, ready to put their 
antiquated instruments to a thorough test. A ten-foot 
pole had at one end two prongs, and at the other a ball 
from which himg a great number of leather strips. The 
hand-pump when worked furiously sent a stream of 
water half an inch in diameter fully a hundred feet. 
But this was mere practice; some other time we'll have 
a real fire and the marvel of seeing it put out will be 
described. 

On hot summer days the beach is alive with bathers. 
Physically the bathers aren't any too robust, but morally 
it seems that, in spite of all said against them, they move 
on a much higher plane. It is amazing with what 
simplicity and indifference bathers changed from 
bathing-suit to kimono without the use of pavilions. 
Women appeared quite naked, and dressed in the midst 
of crowds of both sexes, yet no one but ourselves seemed 
to pay any attention to it. I believe the time will come 
when the Japanese will hate the foreigners most bitterly 
and most justly for their interference in this phase of 
their life. For nothing but the poison of prudishness has 
come to take the place of their former indifference to the 
nude. It is the custom of missionary critics of Japanese 
morality to forget the immorality they left behind. No 



i86 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

one who knows the Japan of yesterday and to-day will 
say that the people have been bettered in any way by 
the introduction of western morality. It must not be 
forgotten that in ancient times, as now, here as every- 
where, adultery has been looked upon as a crime. 

Between Kobe and Akashi lie about nine miles of the 
loveliest beach on the Inland Sea. The water is gener- 
ally smooth, though on occasion swells roll in by way of 
Kii Channel and storms sweep across it convulsively. 
Its beauty is illusive and the island across the way is 
invariably lost in mist. When the hills appear, they 
look Hke a snowfiake under a microscope. The sea 
itself is a film of easy animation, with fishing-boats per- 
forming their centuries-old task of weaving industry 
into art. 

Hereabouts the hills are studded with characteristic 
Japanese pines. There is a striking resemblance be- 
tween the motions of the body and hands in Japanese 
dances and the direction of the green twisted branches. 
Something mimicky abounds in both, but a slight taint 
of vulgarity and a very decided primitive resentment at 
conflict with superior forces mar the dances. Insular- 
ism affects both man and nature. The winds mold the 
trees and the trees mock the repression. People feel 
the repression in isolation until it is broken into by out- 
siders. Then a mocking spirit takes hold of them. 
Wasn't it the clown who mocked the crown with im- 
punity? And it would seem that Japanese resentment 
against the oppression of feudalism, not daring to vent 
itself openly and directly, found relief in an indirect 
form of amusement, though they didn't know them- 
selves against whom it was aimed. Hence the ludicrous 
attitudes of the men in dancing. Instead of man being 
an evolved monkey, may it not be that the monkey is 
a distorted man, a creature in whom his human nature 
was repressed? 



AKASHI AND A CASTLE 187 

For the benefit of such of the nobility as on occasion 
or on command resort to the detached palace at Suma 
there has been built a special shrine. It is not open to 
the general public. It is but about three years old and 
cost over thirty thousand yen. Immaculate cleanliness 
obtains throughout the spacious inclosure. The long 
rows of unsoiled mats in the main chamber, the narrow 
side rooms, the long strips of deep-blue hangings, seem 
immune to the possible uncleanliness of touch. One 
would bow and worship this in itself regardless of the 
tenets it was there to guard or symbolize. 

The ceiling over the altar was made of decorative panel 
insets. Rich in color, they seemed to open the roof to 
the vision of human aspiration. Ultra-modern, they 
still maintained a subtle element of Japanese originality. 
Two panels on either side of the wall behind the altar 
or shrine contained figures obscured by flowing lines, 
which looked like imitations of angels in flight. They 
are frescoes of pagan grotesqueness softened, rather 
than angelic studies made weird. It is the pagan influ- 
enced by contact with westernism, however pagan the 
affecting ideals themselves may be. 

Brass bowls and vases and simple offerings stood be- 
fore the altar. Luxurious and imposing as these were, 
arranged to give a brilliant impression, to arrest the full- 
est attention of the worshiper, it all went beyond the 
point of personal appeal. It seemed to me to recognize 
each man as a human being originally innocent of sin 
and crime, and to recall him to recognition of his own 
essential goodness and virtue. It seemed to challenge 
these forced confessions of sin which have weakened the 
moral forces of mankind. These brilliant settings and 
simple cleanliness recall the innocent to their innocence 
and to the sweetness of life. 

A few miles farther west along the same Inland Sea 
stands Akashi, the place decided upon as the time 



1 88 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

meridian of Japan. It is that in another and more 
picturesque way, for to step within the grounds of what 
is left of the former daimyo's castle is to pass on into 
another world of time. But two towers in white remain 
unimpaired. The rest of the reserve is only sloping 
stone walls and muddy moats within which, dreaming 
away eternity, loll the lovely lotus-leaves. Nowhere was 
more of old Japan left undisturbed than in this district 
at this castle until the greedy hand of Kobe reached 
out for it and made of it a public park. How sad it is. 
Not till it was trimmed and spoiled did it become public 
property. Why couldn't they have let it alone? The 
sequestered paths, the cool and peace-won woods, the 
moss- and plant -grown walls — something more than the 
Orient lay hidden there. Something of life which spans 
all space and outlives all time. 

The lotus was in flower. The thick, generous, sturdy 
leaves with the pure-white bulb! Within each leaf 
rolled the quicksilver-like bead of water, rolled, nor left 
a streak or stain, rolled like a pearl in one's palm, rolled 
without purpose or aspiration. How it gets there — 
who can tell? It plays with the wind and teases the 
leaf. But nothing disturbs anything in that lotus 
world. 

The day was altogether too fine for one to be within; 
while within it was altogether too noisy and too dirty to 
resist the day. It was the great cleaning-day. Wishing 
to avoid being either within or without, I gave way to the 
impulse and — well, no, I didn't catch the train for Akashi. 
The ticket-seller said, *'Yes," the wicket-keeper said, 
''No," and just as I gave voice to a most immentionable 
invective a fine-looking Japanese emerged from amid the 
swarming crowds of youngsters and attended to my 
wants, upbraided the wicket-keeper, flourished honorifics 
at the ticket-seller, and blushed for shame for his stupid 
fellow-countrymen. I was saved. But I did not catch 



MUSHROOM ACQUAINTANCES 189 

the train. It went away quite gleefully without me. 
The express came in and picked me up and rushed me 
madly after that local as much as to say: ''Now, you 
stupid thing. I'll show you how to leave honorable 
foreigners behind." In the meanwhile I made friends 
with my Japanese savior. He had been to America 
and spoke fluent English. He had a family of a wife and 
three children (the wife must not be forgotten) and was 
a steel-broker in Kobe. He gave me his card and it did 
not have his name in English on the back — which is 
worth noting. The card of every other Japanese aspir- 
ant has. He invited me to come for a walk with him 
some afternoon, and the train arrived at Akashi. 

Now I want to confess that I had been deliberating 
between going alone and going for some friend. I 
finally went alone. But it is impossible to be alone in 
Japan. Japanese are too cordial and like to speak 
English too much. So though I landed at Akashi alone, 
it was not long before I was provided with sufficient 
escort. I asked my way to the Awaji ferry, and of 
course the man of whom I asked it had to be going to 
the same place. So we pooled forces. 

Akashi is quite a village. But I shall describe it 
when I get a chance to be there alone to see it as it 
is. We went up one street, and I was just about to see 
something when my friend began talking and found he 
was on the wrong street. So we came back again. We 
turned to our left and there before us was the prettiest 
sight imaginable, but my friend was talking in "Eng- 
lish" — so I cannot tell you what it was. Strangely 
enough, this happened again and again, yet I cannot tell 
you what that extraordinarily beautiful aspect of 
Akashi was. We went backward and forward through a 
street as though we were on the inside of a Chinese 
dragon, and saw about as much. By that time we had 
passed the ferry station twice and were returning to it 



190 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

m amazement. He talked a lot to Japanese and each 
one directed us with the same certainty. 

A dull resignation came over me as I lolled in the sun 
of that glorious day. I would have gone into a sort of 
emotional non-existence had it not been for Emerson. 
He was with me. Rare is such a friendship. We say 
little to each other, and he never talks but when I ask 
him something. Then he does not just talk; he reveals, 
he points out, and every touch of his dissolves the gold of 
life into a more exquisite essence. Then I have but to 
think of a shape and the gold pours into this thought- 
mold and remains fixed for the moment in the solidity 
of usefulness. I think of another form of loveliness, and 
the same ''touch" turns the substance to gold, soft and 
formative. And so the world is in constant flux, and 
life pours beautifully about me. So suited are his 
thoughts to every phase of nature that Japan at her best 
is no better. Ah, I am not fit for such fine companion- 
ship. Emerson had never snubbed me nor would he 
leave me under any circumstance, but I leave him very 
often. And just then I forgot all about him because my 
Japanese "friend" thought of another word he had 
once learned as some foreigner's banto. 

The launch came and we were soon making our way 
across to Awaji. Awaji is an island. From the dis- 
tance one does not wonder much at the imagination 
which credited it with mythological origin. From its 
own shores it yields less to such touches. And though 
every isolated race on the face of the earth has draped 
the little land which nourished it to nationality with 
special divine favor, there is perhaps no island in the 
world occupying the exalted position of Awaji. Feed- 
ing 194,000 people, or 5,200 to the square ri, on rice and 
pickles, it sustains 50,000,000 on myth and vanity. 
For when the creator and creatress of Japan, Izanami 
and Izanagi, put aside their virginity, it was the island 




THE BANKS ARE BLACK, QUAGMIRE-LIKE: THE SQUALOR MORE REAL THAN 

APPARENT 




BY NINE A.M. THEATER STREET WAS AGOG WITH LIFE 




FROM ROOF TO ROOF SHOPKEEPERS HAD ALREADY DRAWN WHITE CLOTH 
STRIPS TO FILTER THE SUN's RAYS 



AWAJI— THE FIRST-BORN 191 

of Awaji which remained to tell the tale. Otherwise we 
should never have known it. Here, then, is the cradle of 
the deep in which the divine ancestors of Japan rocked 
their first-bom. Of course, the story of the creation of 
Japan is in essence not very much different from that of 
the ancient Hebrews. The Oriental tale is a little more 
chauvinistic, that is all. The ancient Hebrews were 
more international, and a little wiser. They made a 
more general statement about the creation of the world, 
and thus laid themselves open for less scientific criticism. 
But the marvel of it is that in this far-off island world 
one dare not doubt, while everywhere else doubting the 
creation of the world entire has become an anachronism. 

This much, however, is a startling reality. The island 
of Awaji is slowly sinking. The shore-line nearest 
Akashi is gradually narrowing, and fishermen are being 
driven elsewhere for their livelihood and for places to 
stretch their nets. I presume that in time to come the 
disappearance of this island will be regarded as the 
Ascension by the theocrats of this little world. 

I cannot account for the mystery of it, but what con- 
nection with this mythology can it have that my return 
from Awaji was at a time when the whole of Japan seemed 
to have gone mushroom-gathering and fairly littered the 
train with their harvest. 
13 




XII 

THE THUMB 

West to Nagasaki 

^NE misses the wilderness and the wide spaces 
in Japan. Forty-five milHon people crowd 
the rural districts with a pressure that is 
like the weight of the water near the bottom 
of the sea. There is hardly what we call 
a homestead; strings and strings of villages make of 
all Japan a metropolis with suburbs. You never see an 
isolated farm-house, you never breathe the air of open 
places. But in every nook and comer you may find a 
calm and stillness, a sort of subhuman inactivity. 
Japanese cities are but the surface disturbances of world 
striving. 

Like a Martin Eden I slipped out of the modem 
Japanese ship — Kobe — and dove for the bottom till I 
reached Himeji, thirty-four miles toward the west. 

I was the companion of a young Japanese who was 
going home to his relatives to see them a last time before 
sailing for America. 

Primarily, interest in Himeji is in its ancient castle. 

This magnificent structure in white domineers over 
the plains in Harima province, over which it has ceased 
to rule. It stands out above all other buildings, bare 
and brazen, eagle-like, but lifeless. Compared with 
Osaka and Tokyo castles, it is wanting in beauty, lacks 
that flighty spirituality of other Japanese edifices, and 
certainly has none of their stately reserve. It seems to 
have been bom of two motives — to see and be seen. 



A CASTLE FORTRESS 193 

It is marvelously well preserved for its age, having 
been begun in the fourteenth century and finished in 
the sixteenth. The interior is coarse, rough, harsh, 
and hollow. It rings with the voice of austerity and 
harbors no retreat but for men of austere natures. 
It has no chambers, wooden pillars alone foresting 
the cold, bare interior. Of course, it is now stripped 
and its nudity adds to its seeming coldness. But one 
cannot imagine softness having lounged there in thought 
or action. Strong as those massive wooden columns 
are, one cannot picture esthetes leaning against them. 
White without, dull within, seven stories turreted in 
ever-decreasing area, each seems but a means of seeing 
farther, not better. A mound of power, it is motion- 
less, eight hundred feet of stone, wood, and plaster. 
One wonders whether six centuries hence the Woolworth 
Building in New York will have resisted time and change 
as vigorously. 

Then the harakiri mam, or suicide-room. (It con- 
veys somewhat of a wrong impression to translate the 
word harakiri, or seppuku, as suicide, for, though both 
stand for self-murder, still the circumstances are alto- 
gether different. The latter was, in fact, more generally 
self -execution — that is, the person was ordered to cut 
himself open. Beside him stood a trusted friend or 
executioner, sword raised, ready to sever the bowed head 
from the body the instant the victim's knife had pene- 
trated his abdomen. There were, indeed, cases of real 
suicide, where a person, cornered, preferred death to 
falling into the hands of his enemy.) Even the harakiri- 
room still stands. Whatever it may have looked like in 
ancient times, to-day it is little more than a shed. A 
platform as high as a Japanese shoulder fits into the 
room. Here the fateful man drank his last draught of 
pride, while before him stood human beings to admire 
and applaud. 



194 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

What a life it was! A castle conceived in slaughter, 
baptized in blood, harboring self-murder, and now 
haunted by the ghost of an innocent victim. It was 
finally finished by the lowly bom Hideyoshi; its car- 
penter cast himself down from on top because even his 
wife had noticed a slight lean to the pillars ; it saw many 
a proud samurai open himself; and a beautiful girl was 
here beaten to death and her body cast into the well. 
The latter story is worth retelling. 

Okiku was a beautiful girl and concubine to one of the 
retainers. Another loved her, but she repulsed him, con- 
cubine though she was. There is morality even among 
concubines. But enemies were in those days a social 
necessity. The girl's lord had enemies or he never 
would have been a lord. They plotted against him or 
they never would have been enemies. They were frus- 
trated or there never would have been "The Well of 
Okiku." Okiku had revealed the plot in question and 
was ordered to be put to death, but the executioner, 
"inflamed with her beauty," preserved her life. Un- 
grateful for thus being saved, she still was moral enough 
to repulse the advances of her benefactor. This story 
is a little confused, but it seems the enamoured male could 
not see beauty so virtuous and unapproachable, and, 
fearing lest another come and ravage it, killed Okiku 
himself. Not as the "brave man with the sword," but 
he "beat her every day and finally put her to death by 
torture, throwing her corpse into the well." Conse- 
quently, "for a long time after this the well was said to 
be haunted by her ghost, which came out every night, 
counting dishes and weeping bitterly." This selfsame 
lord, had he committed an unintentioned error toward 
his lord, would have been given a chance to cut himself 
open before the admiring gaze of his fellow-warriors. 

There are many wells within this fortress, and since 
destiny had intended that this place, so full of action 



HIMEJI— THE DUST-BIN 195 

and self-murder, be some day silent and hollow with 
wells unused, a small girl's ghost might just as well 
make use of one. We hear nothing of what happened to 
the criminal. How many thousand ghosts must wander 
about Himeji? 

From the top one commands a lovely view of the plain 
round about. It is encircled with hills, opening like a 
dust-pan out on the Inland Sea. And the sea seems to 
sweep the numerous little islands toward it. 

Himeji is another sort of dust-bin, for here, in 1905 and 
191 5, prisoners of war, first Russians, then Germans, were 
kept, and an army division is quartered. I wonder 
when all militarism will be swept into the dust-bin. It 
seems mankind will never learn, not even from imused 
fortresses. 

Many quiet little villages lie scattered round about 
Himeji, the numerous coves between the hills having 
each its hamlet — now called suburbs by English-stutter- 
ing Japanese. 

There are two temples here; one is used for wor- 
shipers, the other for prisoners. At the latter there is a 
most beautiful pine-tree. Its branches are straight, 
reaching out across a circular plot about thirty feet in 
diameter. More than sixty twelve-foot props support 
them ; a little forest under a tree. 

I had come to Himeji with a young Japanese and was 
to visit his home. Our rickshaw men took to a narrow 
little roadway round the base of the castle and then cut 
across the rice-fields. Soldiers were trimming the weeds 
in the ditch-drains. Women, children, and laborers 
wandered about as though it were midday. The rice- 
fields were rich and carpet -like. Turning once to the 
right and then straight on we reached Shinzaike. 

It was in the cool of the evening, when all the world 
puts aside the stress of life for the comfort of living. 
Laborers— and who is not a laborer in Japan? — were 



196 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

gathering the scattered remnants of their toil. But for 
the disgusting odor which vitiates the sweeter scents of 
country Hfe in Japan the setting had been perfect. 

The village temple rang with evening prayer. It was 
not exquisitely furnished, but it was rich in rustic 
simplicity. 

The little cemetery, too, was part of the village. My 
companion — a Christian — could not pass without paying 
his Shinto respects at his mother's grave. I tried to get 
him to tell me why he became a Christian, but he was 
one of those Japanese who can speak fairly well until 
they don't want to tell you what you are after. He 
would not commit himself. He was a hyphenated 
Christian, not uncommon in Japan. 

The village was dirty and smelly, but not a sound was 
there to disturb the glory of its silence. After the vulgar 
laughter and maudlin songs, the frantic calls for jin- 
rikishas, the monotonous /w^ (bamboo flute), the scrap- 
ing, the incessant scraping of w^ooden shoes, which 
keeps the streets of Kobe in a perpetual motion, I could 
not get enough of this far-away stillness. For the first 
few hours I felt like a steamer laboring heavily on swells 
after the passing of a typhoon. 

Children huddled in the middle of rooms open to the 
world, waiting for their elders to return. One sat like 
a little savage watching the flames in the fireplace in 
the outer shed. My companion stopped to chat with 
boys who had been to school with him. His parents 
had been ambitious, so he was Europeanized, dressed in 
foreign style, and spoke English. This country lad 
went about in primitive simplicity, practically no 
clothing on his body and no manners on his healthy 
instincts. 

The home of the headman — my companion's brother — 
was in the midst of little mud huts with thatched roofs. 
The lure of the quiet was great, and they appreciated 



IN THE SHADOW OF CENTURIES 197 

its value, for there was not too much talk. They had 
asked me to stay the night. At first I hesitated, then I 
precipitated a second invitation, and remain I did. I 
settled into the night and its quietude with a sense of 
comfort that was not only snug but unfolding. Japan 
generally suffers by too close inspection. Here prox- 
imity reached the heart of the world. 

We sat upon the mats, looking out into the little garden 
inclosed in a six-foot wall. Beyond stood the white 
"Heron Castle," slowly sinking into the night. It was 
lovely beyond comparison. The greater shadows of 
world peace thus embraced the shadows of that symbol 
of centuries of conflict. And there I passed one of the 
most peaceful nights I have lived through in Japan. I 
slept between all-silk juton (quilts) and was never more 
rested at dawn. 

They did not take me into their midst, but the distance 
at which they kept me was that of respect, not strange- 
ness. The wife appeared only to serve, the brothers and 
other children moved about quietly. 

Before breakfast we wandered into the hills through 
pine-groves, reaching a village completely isolated within 
another valley. A wood-cutter with ax and saw across 
his shoulder made his way along in a manner seen on 
Japanese pictures of life in the old days. Though it was 
but 6.30 A.M., women and boys were already at work 
gathering pine-leaves for fuel. 

Three hundred years before, and for hundreds of 
years before that time, this selfsame forest was the stage 
whereon were enacted deeds of mercy and depredation. 
Here Japan's knights errant, her warriors of the round 
table, spent their lives and thought that what they knew 
was all there was to know in life. Yet they had as 
limited a conception of what it would be like in my time 
as I have of the days which in centuries will be. 

It is to the credit of the Japanese government that in 



198 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

but a few years it has made travel for the foreigner, once 
so dangerous, so safe and secure. I wandered about 
Japan absolutely alone, leaving Kobe without a foreign 
soul knowing where I was, and never felt for a moment 
insecure. Thus one Saturday night I left my boarding- 
house at a quarter past midnight. It was dark in the 
streets, stores were shut, and only a few stragglers about. 
I was bound for Miyajima, one of the three most beau- 
tiful places in Japan. The second-class train was 
crowded beyond its capacity, and for nearly an hour I 
stood on the platform, tired, sleepy, and by no means 
keen upon going. I kept pressing the guard for a seat, 
and finally he led me into another coach and there made 
room for me. The train had no sleeping-accommodations. 

At about two past midnight a crowd of merrymakers 
took possession of the coach and authority fairly sput- 
tered out of one man's arm. Unusual respect was shown 
him. He ordered the guard in such a way as 'twould 
seem would lead to a fight, but he gained what he was 
after. Folk asleep were wakened and told to find other 
places until this party was comfortably seated. There 
was a similar case reported in the papers of two officials 
holding up an express train for two hours because their 
baggage had been left behind. An inquiry was made 
into that case. Ours, no less offensive, seems to have 
passed unnoticed. 

Where all these people could possibly be going to at 
such hours of the night is one of the mysteries of mass 
movement in Japan no one has as yet solved. But by 
morning most of these travelers had dropped off like 
linotype matrices, each into his little groove called home. 
One cannot become eulogistic of railroad accommodation ; 
lack of efficient equipment, overcrowding, and a certain 
carelessness which would not be tolerated elsewhere rob 
travel of much of its pleasure. 

I had taken the midnight train, as that would bring 



ONOMICHI— FISHING VILLAGE 199 

me to Onomichi in time to catch the first boat down the 
Inland Sea for Miyajima, which was to sail between eight 
and nine o'clock. I arrived at 7.52. At the station was 
a young chap who overheard my questions of the guard, 
and when I emerged he was ready to accompany me. 
He could speak a little English, and I was the first 
foreigner to have arrived at Onomichi since he graduated 
from the middle school. I was the third white person 
to have been seen by him altogether. After I licked 
this bit of sweetened pride I found I had been given a 
bitter pill. Now they are all gentlemanly and mean 
well, but they are all so bashful as to become worse than 
useless — a drag. He was to help me find the boat and 
discover the time of sailing, but he got nothing definite. 
He then offered to conduct me to a restaurant fit for a 
foreigner. He led me for a mile; the eating-place was 
closed. So we returned to one called "Cafe Happy." 
Here I ordered coffee and an omelet. The coffee came — 
undrinkable. It had a flavor of limburger. A quarter 
of an hour after I succeeded by frequent promptings in 
getting the omelet, but no bread. By that time the 
hour was gone and we had to rush back to catch 
the boat. It wouldn't sail for another hour was the 
announcement. So we took to climbing the hills, 
which are scaled by stone steps. Everything there 
was so ''famous in Japan" that it could not be bene- 
fited by mere mention here. 

This, however, did not detract from the interest in 
the village itself. Dirty, narrow, and busy as it was, its 
activity threw a mantle of disregard over things. 

Onomichi is a very busy port indeed. Fishing-smacks 
tilt their masts to the humor of the ripples and swells of 
the sea, and keep their distance from the stone wall. 
The ''strand" is littered with freight amid which move 
the men, women, and children, while their storehouses 
stand about in as much disorder and absence of precon- 



200 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ception or design as accident could leave it. Wherever 
a man found room he built a home and doubtless he 
loved his neighbor overmuch, for he left only room 
enough for him to pass through. 

Withal there is even in this confusion the charm of 
human purpose and the fitness of things. It seems as 
though, no matter what our standards, let us but lift 
ourselves out of the medley and selfishness of commerce 
and need, and somehow the magic order of things weaves 
a lure into our objections. The lover of the picturesque 
calls it by that adjective; he who wants diversion for 
his pains sees in it a fascinating strangeness; and even 
the unconquerable objector gains his satisfaction in 
having something real to object to. But over and 
above all, the simple fact that so many people find it 
conclusive enough to their living and their happiness 
leaves the outsider a convert, if not a resident. 

All this time I have been waiting for the ship to sail 
so as to escape my companion, anxious to practise his 
English — a thing he will never do again unless another 
white man runs (runs, I say) across his path. 

The civilian population stares in amazement at me. 
A man does not know what it is to be stared at until he 
comes to an unfrequented place in Japan. Children, 
with their usual shyness, gather and crowd about the 
foreigner, who is an object of interest and without doubt 
of disgust. Human nature even in the Orient is not 
without its instinct of self-glorification. 

The ship is small, crowded, and uncomfortable. The 
majority of the passengers are males. A crowd is aboard 
in a most jovial mood; their feast of cakes and sake and 
beer is spread on the floor before them. They eat, 
drink, and are merry in ways quite Japanese. No men 
know what abandon is so much as do these men. They 
play at their child-games with the hilarity of children, 
and they sleep no less peacefully. A Japanese can 



MIYAJIMA— THE SACRED 201 

sleep anywhere at any time of the day — be it on train 
or tram, on his own shoulders or on yours. Some were 
belowdecks, where the air had been breathed over and 
over again and most likely will be to the end of time. 

The day drags. Port after port is found sequestered 
within each bend. We are met by sampans which lash 
to for the discharge of cargo and for passengers. If 
our approach is quiet, not so the announcement. The 
captain on the bridge pulls the rope as though he were 
drowning and the siren shrieks across the silent sea. 

The Inland Sea is pretty and illusive, but not majestic. 
The islands gather round about in dim invisibility. They 
are numerous, but not various; ever present, but not 
monotonous. They do not inspire, their dreamy sem- 
blance of reality awakes no after-longing. Slightly, it is 
like crossing the equator, though the latter is more 
positive, more definite. 

Ten hours pass. In the darkness, the little ports 
creep out of their vagueness and into prominence. To 
dream during the day is weird. At night the magic 
spell falls away and the ports become more beautiful. 
The sea, during the day syrup-like and thick, under the 
cloak of night becomes cool, translucent, and alive with 
the glittering reflections of electric lights. Into a net of 
these lamps we steer and land at Miyajima. 

Without much ado I take up quarters at a little 
Japanese inn. Its daintiness, cleanliness, and spacious- 
ness would commend themselves to the most fastidious. 
As the servant opens the door of the bath to show me in, a 
faint voice protests excitedly. We withdraw. It was 
the beautiful little Japanese woman with the wedding 
and engagement ring on the proper finger who had come 
down on the same boat. It being summer still, the 
karakami has been removed and one can see across the 
hall, across another room, across a little court, and into 
her room with its little balcony. She is imconscious of 



202 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

being observed. She does up her thick black hair, 
exhibiting a finely shaped white arm as pretty as 
Lucretia's. Her face is tightly drawn, in reserve, not 
selfishness; each feature a model in itself. 

What silence! Who would know that her husband 
sat a little apart, reading a paper? Not a word has been 
exchanged. She speaks with her dainty actions rather 
than with her tongue. Her face seems sad. There is re- 
straint, not vigor in her silence; the suppression of ideas 
rather than their contemplation. The karakami is 
drawn across and the picture is shut out from my life. 

Miyajima (Temple Island) is also known as Itsuku- 
shima. Its natural loveliness justifies the veneration in 
which it is held by all. A big temple is built out into 
the sea, standing on hundreds of piles. At considerable 
distance stands a tremendous torii in a setting as pict- 
uresque as anything to be seen in Japan. The hills 
seem to smother all outer noises and harshness. They 
roll higher and higher, one after the other, like a great 
thunder-cloud. And even the singing and dancing of 
the geisha do not seem so harsh as in port cities. 
It was late in September when I was there, and the 
suggestion of the coming autumn made it still more 
impressive. 

Though dark when I arrived, it was still early. I 
made my solitary way along the beach roadway partly 
lit by pagoda lanterns. To see the famous torii at night 
is to see the incomparable. The road has been cut 
against the hill and is free from the encroachment of 
"curio" shops. So here in the candle-light, slightly 
augmented by two electric lamps, all confusion is shut 
out from one's senses by the all-commanding darkness, 
and here amid the pines and the lanterns you stop to 
look out to sea. 

Forgetful as one becomes of all else in life, so one be- 
comes conscious of but five elemental sensations. The 



TORII AND CROSS 203 

hills, the lights (or man), the sea, its delicate sound, and 
the torii. The gate to what? The sea surrounds it 
indifferently and has not need of it, and to man it has 
but symbolic value. That it is beautiful one could find 
standards enough to convince the most skeptical. Its 
lines are to beauty what wings are to the albatross. 
But the torii lives. It is a symbol of life and action ; as 
a gate it stands where life and death cross. 

But the remarkable thing is that, standing apart or 
aloof from man and passing things, being gate without 
purpose, it is still firm in its architectural relationship to 
the scene about it. As a gate pure and simple, the torii 
may be magnificent or paltry and ugly. When one is 
made to walk through an avenue of wobbly, red-painted, 
thin-legged torii set to shrive weaklings of their sins and 
symbolizing that weakness by its own infirmity — then 
the torii loses even the simple honesty of gatehood. 
But this torii, devoid of value as gate, stands at a dis- 
tance and impels the most prosaic to admiration. 
One's gaze passes through it even though the wide world 
round about offers unhampered visual pilgrimage. 
Even though the wide world is free of any emotion, the 
eye of the lover of the beautiful leads his desires through 
this torii with its firm pillars set in the limpid waters of 
the sea. 

What is its significance as symbol? Why was the 
torii selected by striving primitive man? Surely its 
beauty must have commended itself to the primitive 
architect. 

How does it compare with the cross? Let us place a 
cross out in the sea and ask ourselves if that in outline 
compares well with the torii. Obviously, the latter 
takes precedence. The cross is rigid, finite, disconsolate. 
You do not know whether its outstretched arms point 
you to heaven or to hell. Line has no relation to Hne 
except as it obstructs or crosses. There is nothing knit, 



204 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

nothing co-operative. There is no support from the 
center pillar to the arm-ends. The eye longs to give 
them something to rest upon. One's sympathy goes 
out to them and longs to ease their weight. In art, to see 
a human being so painted would fill one with the pain of 
that other's agony and reaction against the torturer. 
Suffering is the basic thought which projected the cross. 
It is a symbol which kills joy, it negatives life. It does 
not stand alone in any architectural fitness. 

But pagans seem to fear less man's forgetfulness of 
ruination. They leave their worshipers much more 
alone. They make their symbol, place it on the way- 
side, and hope for man to stumble across it or seek it 
out as it appeals to him. 

The torii is a gateway; the cross is finality. As sym- 
bol, pure and simple, one is beauty and life, the other 
threat and death. One is inspiring and lofty, the symbol 
of creation; the other is a reminder of the barbarity of 
man which put a noble-minded idealist to torture and to 
death. It is the emblem of destruction, not creation. 
One reminds us of the passing of living matter from death 
to life, from inactivity to action; the other from life to 
death. As symbol, the more fortunate is the torii ^ and 
the pagans the most fortunate in their selection. 

There is absolute stillness round about, but for the 
lapping of the thin ripples of the sea as it makes its way 
inward. No one is about. What stands closer to the 
great unknown, the thing beyond the reach of science and 
often so befogged in superstition — what is the nearest 
materialization of the vastness of life more than the sea ? 
That sea which for human purpose serves only as a means 
of man getting to man; that sea which statesmen try to 
talk about under the heading of ''the freedom of the 
seas." The sea is wide and partner to no human 
selfishness, is free from all aggression. The sea is 
freedom. It is the gateway to the universe. 



CLAN VS CONSTITUTION 205 

And this torii stands here as gateway to the sea. It 
Bymbolizes human emotion, which is sister to the sea. 
Both are illusive and beyond interpretation. The more 
"truth" each savior claims to have discovered, the 
greater exactness he claims for his sect or religion, the 
more clearly does he confess his confusion. So, too, with 
statesmen and their boundaries. 

A train is heard on the mainland. It whistles deep 
and long, and emerges slowly — a string of dull eyes. 
However quickly it may go in reality, from here it seems 
to creep, and, though it may have actually traveled 
miles, it has here merely crawled from pillar to pillar of 
the torii. The spirit of trains is not offensive to that of 
the torii. It is not in conflict, either. Nothing can be. 
But it throws light on the question of mystery and the 
unknown. What is perplexing is that a train traveling 
forty miles an hour should have to crawl across the 
length of a twenty-foot span of a torii. Where does 
reality begin and mystery end? A comet passing thou- 
sands of miles a second would take a week to move across 
this torii. Or is it all but the limitation of human vision 
and perception ? Is it not possible that science may yet 
span the universe and make us certain of life on other 
planets as I was then of the speed of the train? But 
how will science ever overcome this foreshortening of 
human knowledge into the limitations of mystery? 

Which will answer? Torii or cross? 

Turning from Miyajima across to the plains which lie 
to the southwest, we soon come to the province of 
Yamaguchi. Perhaps the only justification I have for 
mentioning it here is that in the early days most of the 
immigrants who drifted across the Pacific to America 
came from this district. It is a healthful agricultural 
region, and though in method its people are still as 
primitive as before the change came over Japan, in 
politics they were the progressives. One becomes not a 



2o6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

little mixed in the use of terms in Japanese problems, 
for their progress was toward the restoration of the well- 
nigh effete imperialism. And Yamaguchi being far 
enough away from Tokyo, the seat of the Tokugawa 
Bakafu, it afforded a somewhat safe refuge for the friends 
of the Emperor. From Hagi on the west coast of this 
region have come several prominent Japanese, foremost 
among whom were the inimitable Prince Ito, Father of 
the ''Constitution," and General Nogi. The old name 
by which Yamaguchi province was known in history is 
Choshu. The Choshu clan was one of the most potent 
factors in the restoration of the Emperor. It is still the 
district controlling the military affairs of the country. 

The life of a stranger anywhere in that region is one 
of pestering pursuit by detectives. I got off at Shimono- 
seki, one day, en route to Nagasaki. It is a two-minute 
ferry ride across the straits. A detective approached 
me: ''Gentleman, I am a detective. Show me your 
passport." *'I am a resident of Kobe," I protested, 
"and am on my way to Nagasaki." But I had to pro- 
duce my passport. As soon as I stepped ashore at Moji 
I was again approached in the same manner, and again 
had to produce my passport. As soon as I boarded the 
train, the same sort of demand was made. For some 
strange reason I was immune during my stay at Naga- 
saki, the farthest end of the island of Kyushu. But on 
my return to Moji and Shimonoseki there was no peace. 
The last time, on the train, I spoke to the detective in 
Japanese, somewhat harshly, and absolutely refused to 
show my pedigree. He slunk away like a whipped boy. 

In the mean time I had succeeded in seeing Nagasaki. 
It is pretty enough, but presents that strange phenomenon 
which to my knowledge has never yet been discussed in 
books. Why a city should be prominent during one 
period of a country's development and fall into neglect 
during a later period, when the physical conditions seem 



NAGASAKI 207 

to be more or less the same, is as interesting a study as 
the question of individual success and failure. 

Nagasaki was once the finest city in Japan, more 
closely linked with the western world than Osaka and 
Kobe. In the days when Spain ruled the world, Naga- 
saki was the point of contact. During the three hun- 
dred years of Japan's seclusion Nagasaki alone afforded 
a pinhole of light from the outer world. Through the 
Dutch at Deshima, a small restricted district in which 
they were permitted to dwell under conditions regarded 
as extremely humiliating, Japanese gained what little 
knowledge of science and medicine trickled in. Since 
the restoration Nagasaki has retained some of this 
prominence, but gained little compensation in the way 
of commercial advantage. Nagasaki is now little more 
than a name and a coaling-station. Offered the position 
of editor of the Nagasaki Press, I turned it away, feel- 
ing instinctively that there was little hope for one lost 
in this ancient city, little prospect for his future. 
14 




XIII 

COMMERCIAL JAPAN — OSAKA 

ITUATED at a point not much less favorable 
to commerce than Kobe, Osaka has always 
been the main avenue of trade in Japan to 
and from the capital, whether that was at 
Nara or at Kyoto. Yet, looked upon from 
a pragmatic or a foreign point of view, it is not the kind 
of place to which one should set out, breakfastless, at 
seven o'clock in the morning. Natives will be fully 
awake to the possibilities of trade, the electric inter- 
urban line running from Kobe to Osaka will be jammed. 
Japanese don't know what it is to try to gain mo- 
mentum or to slacken speed. They run their shops, 
their trams, and their national reformations in the same 
jerky, violent fearlessness. It is not so much courage 
as childish carelessness. They are unused to the toys 
westemism has placed in their hands and are oblivious 
of consequent dangers. So we shot over the unguarded 
thoroughfares as though there was no such thing as a 
law of inertia. The streets sounded to the shrill whistle, 
not so much warning as threatening pedestrians. 

It was a chill, misty morning. The sim was up, but 
weak. Not so the people. In the crowded suburbs, 
station after station despatched and received busy folk. 
Every one is always carrying some burden on the back, 
be it baby or bimdle. It seems that provision is made, 
in Japan, for every member of the family having a baby 
to carry. 



MANCHESTER OR CHICAGO? 209 

We shot past village after village. The serrated 
moimtain range running east and west is picturesque. 
Not so Osaka, which is reached in an hour and a quarter 
after a twenty-mile journey. 

Englishmen call Osaka the Manchester of Japan, and 
some Americans, the Chicago of Japan. I am one who 
is content to leave what glory there may be in such a 
comparison to the credit of England. It is a city of 
1,395,823 people, the second in size to Tokyo, and has 
300,768 households, each having on an average 4.61 
persons. 

The city seems cut into a thousand islands roimd which 
swerve the black, muddy waters of the Yodogawa. Fully 
a dozen bridges are crossed in a single journey, and for 
five sen one can have the pleasure of crossing as many 
more as the stoutest-hearted could not put behind him 
in an ordinary lifetime — metaphorically speaking. The 
banks are black, quagmire-like; the river subject to the 
tides and flood. Punts, rafts, steamboats of almost every 
size and description crowd the passage, but on the whole 
the waters are too shallow for anything larger than 
hand-propelled craft. The commonest of these is 
unique. A long plank is placed on deck. The boat- 
swain pries the bottom of the river with a long bamboo 
pole. He retreats to the fore part of the junk, his pole 
over the side, reaches the bottom and pushes until he 
has walked the length of the plank. In that way he 
fools his kami (god) and uses up the forty -odd years of 
life placed at his disposal. 

Generally a fine mist hangs over the city. The 
squalor and untidiness are even more real than apparent. 
Beggars and minstrels pass in stately leisureliness in and 
out of the narrow alleys ; some in flowing black kimonos, 
with big straw hats over their ears and eyes, one in gold 
and tinsel, bare-headed, blowing on an unwilling conch- 
shell. Boys up to their groins in the slime of the river- 



210 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

bed search for eels. And the never-ceasing pressure of 
crowds courses through the streets. 

Much as one is impressed by the size of Osaka, a 
certain provincialism difficult of analysis and still merely 
an Orientalism amuses the visitor. It is without the 
least doubt a metropolis. Ford taxis dash about among 
the trams and jinrikishas, electric signs blaze forth their 
self-praise — yet in front of the railway station, astir 
with travelers, stands a great crowd of men and women, 
each with an imitation branch of cherry-blossoms, as- 
sembled to say farewell to some friend or relative. The 
tense used is merely the historical present. They are 
not still there, but they might be — and what things 
might be are a far guess in this strange world. 

Ask any waiter in an}^ restaurant what places of in- 
terest are to be found, and he will immediately direct you 
to Shinshaibashi — the main street. To walk in Osaka 
when the streets are dry is to eat one's allotment of dirt 
before wearing out a rin's worth of shoe-leather. To 
do so when it rains requires a pair of stilts. Street paving 
is still undreamed of in the catalogue of things modem in 
Japan. A street in Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, or Tokyo 
during a rain is a picture of Noah's world after the flood. 
So one trams it these days in the Land of the Rising Sun. 
Mayor Johnson's two-cent fare scheme was ideal, but it 
lacked one essential — cheap labor. Labor must be cheap 
here in spite of the increased cost of living, or there would 
not be from three to four conductors to a car. It costs 
five sen (two and one-half cents) to ride all day in Osaka 
— and when you buy a bookful of tickets you can do so 
for very much less. 

I reached my objective soon enough. It was a narrow 
little thoroughfare with but an occasional jinrikisha to 
disturb the early-morning shoppers. From roof to roof 
the shopkeepers have already drawn their white cloth 
strips across the street to filter the sun's rays. Though 



THE GREAT CLEARING-HOUSE lit 

the morning was still gray, not so was the display of 
wares. Everything was wide open, the stock attesting 
to the wealth of the city and the taste of the people. 
Through this narrow byway one wanders unsolicited 
and leaves the merchant unoffended if one prices with- 
out purchasing. Osaka is the great clearing-house of 
wants for Japan. Everything it possesses manifests 
that phase of its nature. Its pleasures abound to keep 
in check its resentment against being over-busy. 

The organization of their business methods, viewed 
from the angle of the stranger on the street, is more 
spontaneous than planned. There is the difference 
between a prairie field of wild flowers and a horticult- 
urist's garden. There are no centers here. You do 
not feel that you have come into a city built on pur- 
pose, as was Kyoto. It seems as though, when Hide- 
yoshi announced his intentions of building his castle- 
fortress here, the rush of merchants made planning 
an impossibility. 

At that early hour the street presented itself as few 
streets do in Japan. There was a touch of Sunday 
serenity, without its repressiveness, and never was 
spring so soft in all the days in Japan. By nine o'clock 
that softness was all gone, vanished as quickly as the 
loveliness of the cherry-blossom. A street running at 
right angles to it, and much broader, was agog with life. 
It was the theater street. A crowd of old women, young 
women, and not a few men and babies stood in line while 
a host of assistants were stamping tickets preparatory 
to the opening of the theater. All is done with a lack 
of concentration conducive to idleness and monotony of 
action. The Orientals could accomplish in an hour 
what they take ten in doing if only they set themselves 
about it systematically. Have they not done politically 
and industrially as much in a few years as it took us 
ages to develop? It is this drawing, dragging out which 



212 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

is the obvious flaw in their make-up. The theater helps 
prove it. No western person with any interest other 
than ethnological would put up with the things they 
call entertainment. It starts at nine in the morning and 
ends near midnight. If the actors only moved a little 
faster the whole of it could be done in two hours. 

But we haven't been inside yet. They are all still 
waiting for the theater to commence; so I drift into a 
little restaurant whose keeper seems to know English. 
His establishment bore the imposing sign, "Sunrise 
Restaurant." A sign-board below proffered the further 
information, something about "Syrvyse, " which I inter- 
preted to mean service. But despite its title, it seems I 
looked in from the opposite end of the telescope, and was 
viewing the "sunrise" from the sunset, for though now 
near 9.30, there was as little proof of life as though it 
were midnight. 

The world is made for the tourist. For him every- 
thing is open and time is never wasted. Ask any one in 
the wide world you meet to direct you to a place of in- 
terest and he doesn't know, but sends you to the tourist 
office. So here. A gentleman could suggest but one 
cure for my curiosity — Tenoji Park. But one wanders 
from one place to another in Japan without seeing any 
change. The park is no more than what we call a Square 
— and much less. All you can say is that on this spot 
no one cut the trees down nor erected any private 
buildings. The absence of grass always leaves the 
foreigner unsatisfied with Japanese parks. The whole 
is stony and bare. Add a few low fences, an exhibition 
building, and the inevitable monkey zoo, and all is com- 
plete. Upon the balcony of the exhibition building a 
brass band is doing something, and inside is a limited 
display of business products — a commercial exhibit held 
twice a year. 

While looking at some of the products here (which 



GRAFTING OF EAST AND WEST 213 

need no special mention) I was addressed by a little per- 
son in English. He invited me to his section and asked 
me to wait half an hour and he would guide me about 
Osaka. In the mean time we discussed every topic 
imaginable, from commodities to international peace. 

His duties done, he strolled out with me. The city 
seemed transformed. A word here and a word there 
and customs, manners, beliefs, and aspirations open 
their blinds and reveal a wealth of interest and life 
beneath this unclean, uninviting exterior. He led me to 
the home of a friend, somewhere in the heart of the city. 
A western structure fronting the street, it was ex- 
quisitely Japanese in the rear. This is the essence of 
Japan's modernism. We entered a little court, clean 
and quiet, and he called softly. Presently a little page 
appeared and asked us into the foreign wing of the build- 
ing, where, after removing our shoes, we took uncom- 
fortable little chairs upon which one can only half sit 
— and waited. 

The time we waited affords me here an opportunity 
of digressing. The chairs are generally circular, with a 
diameter of about twelve inches. Now how can there 
be comfort in sitting on a foot of space with a six-inch 
back for support? The gentleman appeared and asked 
us above. The lower part of this foreign wing is given 
over to offices; the upper, to a large reception-room 
neatly furnished in ultra-modem style. A piano and 
several other western instruments, velvet curtains, soft 
carpet, wicker wainscoting — a spacious, quiet, and restful 
room. Two portraits in oil (mother and father, most 
likely), three landscapes in oil and two in silk em- 
broidery hung upon the walls. Things were in much 
better taste than in a good many western homes, yet 
incongruous because clearly foreign to the owners. 

We sat for fully an hour. The host talked in English 
in sudden spurts ; the rest of the time I simply listened, 



214 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

listened until it seemed I was hearing a stream murmur- 
ing in the distance. 

Everything was according to form. I had no room for 
objection on that score. But it was the form I objected 
to. Japanese tea was served and followed by a cup of 
coffee. It was placed before me, but no one as much as 
recommended it to me as a cure for drowsiness. I was 
beginning to believe it would last for ever when, with a 
nod and sudden exclamation, as though the talk had 
come to a satisfactory conclusion, he turned to me and 
said: "I promise to guide you about Osaka. Are you 
busy this evening?" Now, though I have seen not a 
little of the world, for real, genuine good-fellowship 
none compares with the Japanese. Here I was more of 
a stranger to them than I could possibly have been any- 
where in the world gone civilized, yet they took me at 
face value. We had become friends, and they were 
going to prove it. 

Conscious of my being interested in the interior of a 
Japanese home, my host said his friend would show me 
through. "But my house so dirty," he pleaded, not, I 
fear, without affectation, or else with a national mis- 
understanding of what the word dirty means. 

Not all the mansions of the world equal in beauty the 
simplicity of a Japanese interior. The absence of hang- 
ings, of bric-^-brac, of all incumbrances, leave one's feel- 
ings in exquisite peace. Whatever one says against the 
modernization of Japan — and much of it justly — one 
thing cannot escape the observer: the Japanese have 
not made that worst of mistakes — ruining the dignity of 
their houses by overcrowding them with importations. 
If they want things of the West, they have the good 
sense or bad sense to build separate wings for them. But 
their own homes they leave chaste and unspoiled. 

A western home, unless it is in extremely good taste, 
bruises one's feelings at every turn. There are so many 



DOLLS AND CROWDS 215 

things to see that one forgets to be. We buy things 
from all over the world, remove them from their natural, 
and exhibit them amid foreign, settings. But here in 
Japan the essence of home spirit is rest from confusion. 
One might as well expect a flower to bloom in an un- 
weeded garden as peace in a house overcrowded with 
artificiality. 

Just as I have never been in a house more thrilling 
in its simplicity, so have I never looked upon a baby's 
playthings more fabulously enchanting. A corner of 
the living-room had been set aside for the two-year-old 
baby girl's dolls and playthings. It was a shrinelike 
setting, a platform with three steps leading up to it, on 
every inch of which had been set some gilt and lac- 
quered and silked doll. The whole was so lavish, so 
profuse, it bewildered. But for order and arrangement 
that little baby was seeing and receiving impressions 
which will doubtless affect its entire life. 

At night the crowds, which surge through the city 
streets, are more like floods than streams. It is im- 
possible to get away from them. In Japan the crowd 
is an altogether different phenomenon from what it is 
in other parts of the world. The streets are void of 
traffic. With the exception of the street-cars and a 
slowly increasing number of motor-cars, wheeled traffic 
is limited to man-pulling wagonettes. Yet the crowd 
fills every bit of available space. Not only space filling, 
but interlocking, goes on, a weaving of human shuttles, 
each with a thread of its own until it seems to become an 
entanglement against the understanding of the outsider. 
You are not in a current with which you must drift, 
but in a swirl of conflicting eddies. Every one goes in 
every possible direction. You move among them, but 
never with them, yet they among themselves seem 
to be the most interwoven one I have ever seen in any 
crowd. 



2i6 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

You feel this oneness of Japan, this nationaHty, this 
clinging, this fitting into and fitness of things. It is 
one swarm, indivisible, one color, one craze. That is 
why a Japanese professor visiting America wrote so 
strangely of our American crowds. He objected to 
crowd influence, to the swaying of the mass one way and 
then another, and to that force carrying leaders and 
followers in its wayward, whimsical course. That is 
true, because in American and European crowds there 
are cross influences. In Japan, none. Japan is whole 
in good and in bad. Japan is capable of storming for 
great purposes, but also of festering, of becoming stag- 
nant. Once it did, and for two hundred and fifty years 
not a drop of fresh water came into it. Now it is coursing 
along, immixed and unmoved emotionally. That night 
it was celebrating the birth of an emperor, the son of 
the breaker of dams. Emperor Meiji opened the gates 
and let out the stagnant waters of Japan. And these 
vast crowds move along much as though they do not 
exactly know where, but have confidence in their captain. 

Japanese in a crowd are like boys playing in a school- 
yard. Laughter, jabbering, babies snorting, crying, 
shoes scraping, and the grating noise of the iron wheels 
make a trolley trip in Japan anything but delightful. 
Japanese haven't such dislike of crowding as have we. 
With us a crowd is tight by virtue of a desire on the 
part of each individual to be as far from his neighbor as 
possible; a Japanese reverses it. And what is worse, 
each individual brings with him garden truck, square 
boxes on his back which would put a woman's hat box 
to shame, and every sort of article which enters into the 
list of implements indigenous. 

The theater district is ablaze with lights and astir 
with people. If you go to the finest cherry-dance hall 
you will find everything in the most refined and artistic 
taste. During the Naniwa Odori (or Osaka Dance) 



TEA CEREMONY 217 

this is the center of attraction. The little program is in 
English as well as in Japanese. That is proper catering, 
and a foot-note says: ''Japanese tea will be served by 
geisha girls at the luxurious waiting-rcom. Throughout 
the interior you are not troubled by taking off your 
shoes." And this was just as advertised. Chairs 
stood round a platform. Upon the mats moved two 
little girls of about eight years of age. They were 
cunning and playful and gorgeously kimonoed and be- 
mannered. They brought us each a little basket with 
sweets on a plate as our present. Then two geisha 
entered in all their peacock splendor, seated themselves 
before the hibachi (brazier) , and commenced making tea. 
The finest possible tea-leaves had been ground to powder 
and taken up with a little long-handled wooden scoop- 
spoon. Hot water dipped from the kettle on the 
brazier was poured over them — and tea was done. Each 
of us was served separately and in turn. Though the 
beverage is made of tea-leaves, the use of the word con- 
veys an altogether wrong idea. A diluted mixture of 
spinach finely ground gives a nearer approach to proper 
nomenclature. It is as green and as thick and not any 
more palatable or refreshing. 

Nor does the author of the famous Book of Tea assist 
the alien in forming any clear conception of what the 
Tea Ceremony is. What it was, perhaps; but to-day no 
one but the devotee abstracting himself from everything 
else worth while could possibly fathom its meaning or 
learn its art. What the average visitor sees of it is 
about as much of the real ceremony as an interview with 
the Tenno would acquaint him with Shintoism. ' 

We immediately repaired to the auditorium. Hardly 
had we seated ourselves and scanned the elaborate spec- 
tacle before us when from below our balcony issued two 
streams of gorgeous daintiness. They swayed rhyth- 
mically along the narrow aisle toward the stage, turned 



II 8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

toward each other and, meeting, crossed and interlaced 
in a riotous display of scarlet and motion. But for the 
melancholy droning and drumming of discordant sounds 
the scene would have been incomparable. 

The theater, or dance-hall, as it is called, is not like 
ours, though the paneled ceiling is distinctly western. 
The auditorium is square. The audience is placed 
on the main floor and upon a balcony at the rear, 
the less expensive places being below. On an ele- 
vated recess built into the right and left walls at right 
angles with the stage sit the singers and drummers and 
samisen (guitar) players — all women. The geisha enter 
upon the stage immediately below them by way of a 
long platform from the rear. 

It seems that if, according to Nietzsche, melancholy 
music is a sign of decadence, this Japanese music is the 
best proof of it. I believe it represents the period in 
which Japan lay dormant. Nor can I imagine a reju- 
venated Japan without the discard of this unexpressive, 
unthinking, meaningless noise. 

The dancing itself is exquisite. That there should 
have been trifling disturbances to spoil the whole is but 
another orientalism. As with many things here, the 
ludicrous and disharmonious are so frequently and inno- 
cently brought in with the most serious efforts as often 
to mar the beauty or add to the realism of the whole. 
Take the shifting of the scenes. No curtain is dropped, 
but the various artifices of stagecraft are exhibited to the 
education if not pleasure of the audience. It was absurd 
to see trees get up and walk off stage, houses move side- 
ways out of the way, wistaria-blossoms suddenly drop 
from above, or a crouching individual nm behind the 
dancing-girls, placing branches of artificial cherry- 
blossom behind each so she might have one at hand to 
pick up when the dance required it. As the girls dis- 
ported themselves, a gentleman in black kimono came 



NANIWA ODORI 219 

on and quickly removed the baskets as they put them 
down, thus for the moment becoming the center of at- 
traction. And during the whole performance a boy, 
whose duty it was to draw aside a curtain for the geisha 
to pass, stood with his head poked out, grinning his 
widest possible grin at the audience. 

By a very strong effort one could imagine these dis- 
tractions as lending reality to the scene. It could be 
pretended that they, being in black, were humble care- 
takers at the shrine. This, of course, applies to one with 
an unsophisticated imagination. 

Geisha-dancing is in a sense the loveliest living art in 
Japan. The professional dances come but once a year, 
at the time of the cherry-blossoms, and are as short- 
lived as the blossoms themselves. The dance has some- 
what of ceremonial significance. Yet it is only a 
dance. The Japanese love to ceremonialize, and all 
their arts center in temples and shrines. 

A performance lasts exactly an hour — and is repeated 
several times a day. Longer than that it could not sus- 
tain any one's interest, not even that of the Japanese. 
The movements are much the same throughout — slow, 
regular, and soft. Occasionally the dancers stamp 
their feet, and sometimes they set off on a mischievous 
gait — just a dash of impertinence to lend spice to the 
occasion. But they are such modest little maids. So 
there is neither abandon nor restraint, and interest lags 
in a trice. There was even a little discord. The girls 
didn't always come up in time and were often out of 
step. But seen for the first time, when the stream of 
gorgeously kimonoed girls suddenly makes its appear- 
ance, it overwhelms you into surrender with sympathy 
and interest. Yet the simplicity of the dance leaves no 
room for dissertation. 

But there is more than this odori in Osaka. The city 
has its foreign devotees no less than any other city, and 



220 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

on a clear autumn day, when one has to contend with 
neither slush nor dust, the wide rivers and the hundreds 
of bridges are indeed attractive to look upon. At night 
— ^almost any clear night — the lights can be seen for 
miles, reflected in the water. In the better districts one 
gets occasional glimpses of a Japan now hard to find. 

Whatever else is rare in Japan, temples there are 
aplenty. Tennoji is the largest in Osaka. But the 
only advantage it affords is in an excellent view from the 
top of the five-storied pagoda. The city stretches be- 
neath it for miles and miles, and its gray tiles resemble a 
sunless sea. 

But this pagoda has been outdone in modem Japan 
by an ugly monstrosity of iron standing on four bow- 
legs. A slow-going elevator makes its way up and down, 
much as to say: **0h, there they are again. And what 
will they see when they get to the top? A new smoke- 
stack, I suppose." And, as though in imitation of the 
big and little rocks at Yamada Ise, strangely called the 
Husband and Wife rocks, which the Japanese have 
linked with a straw rope, commercial Japan has hung a 
cable across from this iron monster to a smaller structure, 
and they who fail to be thrilled by the ungainly imita- 
tion of the Eiffel Tower can have themselves swung 
across the narrow street. 

When you descend, you are again amid the dirt and 
filth, breathing evil smells coming from the neglected 
convenience stations which are a disgrace to Japan. 
Whatever may be said against the hardness of western 
commercialism, one thing in its favor is that it has laid 
sewers for us. And not till Japan has done so will clean- 
liness and decency be possible. 

One has but to be in Osaka after a severe flood, such as 
occurred in the autumn of 191 7, to see the wretched 
conditions in which its industrial population dwells. 
Like rats on a sinking ship, droves of frightened people 



THE STOCK-EXCHANGE 221 

sought the dikes of the river. For miles along the open 
country improvised shacks and tents staged a scene of 
tragic suffering. Yet that was, after all, not much worse 
than the thousands of hovels which everywhere disfigure 
the topography of Japan. 

The state of flux in which modem Japan now moves 
leaves all attempts at studying the problem in the realm 
of speculation. Industrially, Osaka is the heart of 
Japan. Its factories cloud the sky with smoke and its 
stock-exchange controls the pulse of the Orient. An 
exchange is quite a different proposition in Japan from 
what it is in America. The visitors' ''gallery" is more 
open to the public than a zoo, and one has some difficulty 
discovering which is bull and which bear. But for the 
policeman I might have wandered into the lions' section. 
Two officers stood at the wicket and barred my way. So 
I turned back into the crowd from which I had come, 
stumbling over the unexpected steps in the inclined floor. 
The crowd was thick. No seats about, the men stood 
close together — now more interested in the foreigner than 
the market. Well they might be. But when the mo- 
mentary interest vanished they were as forgetful of 
foreigners as the spirit of speculation is native to them. 
Between them and the gamblers was only the slope in 
the floor. That afternoon things were tame. The 
''animals" had eaten their fill during the wild rampa- 
geous days before the rice riots, and though one might 
think the lean period would intensify their hunger, the 
whip of riot had subdued them somewhat. The "auc- 
tioneer" from his pulpit suddenly advanced his offering, 
whereupon the speculators gathered roimd him like the 
lions before Daniel, but his intrepid self -composure 
kept them at bay. They screamed in his face and shook 
their fingers at him; a moment more and he must 
certainly perish. But suddenly the irate mob disin- 
tegrates, and the unfed pack falls apart indifferently. 



222 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

The door to the street is open and the messengers course 
in and out, while upon the narrow gallery running round 
the chamber others chalk the changes upon the boards. 
Immediately before the pit is another device, peculiarly 
Japanese, which keeps the stranger guessing. The boys 
twirl the strips of metal as though a guessing contest 
were on, and the excited brokers watch them with 
intense interest. 

Just as from the top of the pagoda one sees ancient 
Japan, and from the top of the steel tower modern 
industrial Japan, so from the exchange one looks straight 
down into the turmoil which threatens future Japan. 

I was to visit a glass-factory in Osaka at the invitation 
of the son of the editor of one of the commercial journals 
of Osaka. His sweet, round-faced mother received me 
cordially; tea was served; and then she had a present 
for me — a fan, an artificial flower, a small toy fan, and a 
tiny bottle of perfume. When we departed she wrapped 
the candy-suckers I had not eaten in a piece of paper and 
handed them to me. 

The glass-factory was not far away. From the street 
no one would have suspected its existence. Though not 
very large, it had the greatest out-turn of any in Japan. 
Ten thousand bottles were turned out a day in the old 
way. Tiny, dwarfed little bodies of what should be 
boys were, while working, stripped to the waist, and the 
pressure at which they were kept at work was guarantee 
against even a moment's loss of time. But machinery 
is being substituted. At that very time an American 
was overseeing the installation of some of the most up- 
to-date glass-making machines, in a new factory, which, 
he predicted, would swallow up most of the trade, 
though at the time the demand was but partially 
satisfied. 

This condition obtained not only in glass manufactur- 
ing. During the past three years of war Japan was being 




HUNDREDS OF DEER ROAM ABOUT — ARCH-MENDICANTS OF THIS EASY-GOING 

WORLD 



\ 


.»iy 




mm 









YET SHE D DEFEND THESE LITTLE EXPLOITERS WITH HER LIFE 



* 




im^m 


i^^ 


!^i^^-.J 


w 




ii^ 




>SM^K^\ 


■1 


m 




^2^^ -' 


^^' ' , 






^ 




^ 


BJ 



THE OLDEST WOODEN STRUCTURE IN THE WORLD — HORIUJI PAGODA 




JAPAN SEEMS ONE LONG VILLAGE STREET FROM WHICH THERE IS NO ESCAPE 



HORROR UNEXCELLED 223 

pressed to the utmost for whatever she could make, 
and manufacturers assumed contracts they knew they 
could not fulfil on time. Osaka manufactures almost 
everything that comes from Japan, and the consequence 
of this rush was obvious on the very streets. The narrow 
thoroughfares were crowded with electric cars and auto- 
mobiles, the restaurants often turned people away, the 
river was thick with junks and launches, and Osaka 
enjoyed such prosperity as it had never dreamed of 
from the days of its beginning — three hundred years 
ago. But it is not within the province of this chapter 
to consider these conditions in detail. 

The history of Osaka, however, may be written briefly. 
It has always been the commercial center of Japan. 
Capitals shifted places with the whims of the various 
emperors, but Osaka took no heed. Impervious to 
flood, political and otherwise, in spite of the fact that it 
is situated on the banks of the torrential Yodogawa and 
in the way of all currents of military movements from 
the time of the invasion of Japan by the uncertain 
Jimmu Tenno — the first Emperor — to the present day, 
Osaka has carried the floods of success and the recessions 
of failure with indifference. 

No city in Japan offers a better stage for the display 
of horrors than does Osaka. Its hundreds of bridges, 
which span the branches of the Yodogawa, may keep its 
inhabitants, like lotus flowers, out of the slime beneath 
them, but only the darkness of night can soften its ugli- 
ness. Of all the tragedies in which Japan has been 
steeped during the twenty-five hundred years of its 
existence, none was more bitter than that which made of 
Osaka the ''black as November" scene of Japan's last 
great struggle against disunion. 

Nobunaga was the first of the great triumvirate of 

Japan, the second of which was Hideyoshi, and the last, 

leyasu Tokugawa, the arch-exclusionist, who shut the 
15 



224 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

doors of Japan in the face of the world. In the matter of 
ruthlessness, it is hard to say which of the extremes was 
the worst. Hideyoshi was once or twice brutally severe, 
but he was in general one of the most lenient of Japanese 
generals. Nobunaga seems to have been the worst. 
He was the relentless enemy of Buddhism because the 
priests disregarded his power. He favored Christianity 
for commercial reasons and because it challenged the 
Buddhists. He set for himself one final task following 
his well-nigh complete mastery over Japan's feudal lords. 
After exterminating the warrior-priests who had made of 
the peak of Hiei-san an arrow-head of strife and rapine, 
he turned toward Osaka, where another monastery was 
giving him trouble. And then one of the branches of 
the Yodogawa became the stage for the enactment of a 
scene of diabolical realism. The profligate priests had 
condoned licentiousness and encouraged concubinage. 
When the monastery was attacked, the many wives and 
concubines, with their children, tried to make their 
escape. Proof of their failure greeted the besieged 
warrior-priests in the shape of a jtmk making its way 
along the river toward the castle-temple, loaded with 
the ears and noses of these victims. 

One would like to call this the darkest hour before 
dawn, but how can one look upon the seclusion of two 
hundred and seventy years which followed the conquests 
of these three great generals as a dawn, though it was a 
peace. The battle of Sekigahara is said to have been 
the bloodiest in the history of Japan. The founder of the 
Tokugawa family — leyasu — ^who did so much for the peace 
of the coimtry, violated an oath he had made in friend- 
ship to his superior, the Taiko, and exterminated the 
family he had sworn to protect. And Osaka was the 
center of the storm. It was at Osaka that the first 
Emperor, Jimmu, built his castle after he overcame the 
swift waves which gave it its first name — Naniwa. And 



A CASTLE, EVIL, AND ART 225 

several after him did likewise. But it remained for Hide- 
yoshi, the lowly bom, to set there a fortress impregnable 
to all methods of attack then known to the Japanese. 
In this castle-fortress his son, Hideyori, and the latter 's 
strong-minded mother, Yodogimi, fortified themselves 
when attacked by leyasu. Then followed carnage and 
black night, and the eclipse of genius lowly bom by that 
of another whose antecedents were in the great past no 
less lowly. It was the age of intrigue no less than 
strategy — as is always the case in wars — and leyasu was 
no greater player of that game than his illustrious prede- 
cessor. But he ''put over" a bit of deception which 
simply makes one wonder at the simple-mindedness of 
the Japanese. Seeing that the fortress was impregnable, 
he had arranged an armistice with Hideyori, one of the 
conditions being that the inner moat should be filled in. 
A hundred thousand men were put to the task the instant 
arms were laid at rest, and continued filling in. The 
besieged weakly protested and were easily put off. That 
they should even for one moment have allowed this pro- 
cedure leaves one in irritated amazement. The final 
burning of the castle by internal treachery seems more 
dignified. 

The castle stands to-day as secure in its fame for 
beauty as it is against the invasion of the vulgar. 
Its moat is broad and deep, like the silence hovering 
over it. These conditions are not without their sig- 
nificance. Times change, and as men overcome barriers 
the forms clung to out of mere habit meet with inevitable 
reduction. 

Osaka is older than Tokyo, its moat seems deeper than 
that of the capital, and the accompanying distance in 
space and time less navigable. The silence on Osaka-jo 
is deeper; the castle is sunk in imperial desuetude. The 
eruption of change in time left it deep in the abyss of 
memory. Yet it is not old nor even neglected. It is 



226 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

fresh and clean, and as prohibitive as ever. For there is 
one thing which never seems to die — and that is human 
arrogance and selfishness. That beauty and loveliness 
should surround itself with so much hate leaves one in 
doubt as to whether it can really be beautiful and lovely. 
Can they be so who are bom of destruction? No man 
who keeps himself at such an exalted level as to exclude 
humanity from contact with his virtues can really be a 
great man. So I am led to doubt whether Osaka Castle 
is really as majestic as it seems. I wonder if it is not the 
love of prestige and power and pomp hanging about 
every stone and comer of that structure which makes 
us think it beautiful. Things so interwoven with evil, 
slaughter, pain, and exclusion cannot be beautiful — no 
matter what appearance they present. They cannot 
answer the human craving for the lofty and the noble. 

Yet there stands Osaka-jo, a model of Japanese taste 
and architectural perfection; rampart buildings which 
can really be called wings, for they seem to carry the 
whole castle away upon their swerving lines and promi- 
nences. Wings indeed! The entire arrangement hangs 
between impending descent and promising flight. Noth- 
ing waits upon inspiration with so much grandeur and so 
much reality. Yet it is a contradiction of both, even as 
this rhapsodical praise is a contradiction of the heavier 
feelings which the closed gates, the armed sentinel, and 
the general exclusiveness and restriction, shackled to the 
wonder of it all, provoked. 




XIV 

MYTHOLOGICAL JAPAN — NARA 

STOOD that night over my head in antiqui- 
ty. I was alone, the only pale face in a world 
of weathered wonder-workers. The fathers of 
cults and creeds have all had to abstract 
themselves from reality and imagine the 
things they projected. But I was suddenly immersed in 
mystery and had to splutter and grip at the known to 
keep from losing myself altogether. 

Uncertain information of the yearly festival at the 
Ni-gwatsu-do (Hall of the Second Moon) in Nara set 
me on my way. It was so cold in the electric car to 
Nara that I felt like a corpse in a communal grave. 
Stiffness and sleepiness overtook me before we came to 
the terminus. Then of a sudden the world dropped 
away from before me. Criticisms, objections, antipa- 
thies, vanished. A cool blue world of graded varia- 
tions closed about ; a deep blue-black below, a gray-blue 
canopy perforated with tiny star-holes through which to 
look out into a world of obliterating sunlight. 

There was movement of air among the shadows, and a 
sound of water-currents. Presently a massive gate in 
gray, with horizontal streaks like bars, came out of the 
darkness. Seeing gray steps, I mounted them, crossed 
the broad threshold, and descended, thus passing 
through from without to within, yet being in the same 
realm — on the outer edge of the inner world. Pushing 
through this space and avoiding the black obstruction 



228 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

which veiled the shelter over the massive bronze image 
of Buddha (in the day- world known to have been real 
and material, but then merely a curtain of heavy blue, 
without form or substance) I found myself in the outer 
reaches of this unreal world. It was the remnant of 
reality stored in an unmaterial world, as findings dug 
from a submerged past; findings which they who would 
approximate Nirvana must abandon. 

But here I met my first reaction against the faith. 
Little stands and stalls, littered with tiny images and 
symbols and amulets, seemed to contradict the spiritu- 
ality of man. Desire for profit lurked in the persuasive- 
ness of the vender. We were supposed to be nearer 
spiritual achievement, yet here were some deeply in- 
terested in matters of trade. Perhaps this was a sort of 
remnant purgatory through which one must pass without 
being lured to purchase if one is to gain Nirvana. 

A stout girl with a voice much softer than one would 
have expected, judging from her appearance, priced the 
hangings good-naturedly. "Fifty sen!" she exclaimed. 
*'Why this one has only half as many on it as the one I 
can buy in the city.'* Yet they were genial, slight 
merriment obtaining. 

There are always contrasts. I wanted the assistance 
of a carrier to take me back — just to catch my breath, 
as it were — and to make arrangements for the night. I 
wasn't anxious to spend all of it in this overground world. 
Two rickshaw pullers were ready to serve, asking thirty 
sen for the lift. But which would take me? Evidently 
neither cared very much about going back into the world 
beyond. So they resorted to chance. One drew out a 
towel, tied knots in it ; the other pulled, and won. With- 
out a word the loser stepped into the shafts and whirled 
(pardon the exaggeration) me through the darkness to 
the hotel. Arrangements settled, I started to retrace 
my steps. It was near midnight. A rickshaw man 



THE HEART OF BUDDHISM 229 

offered to take me for twenty-two sen — and uphill at 
that — and he said he would wait for me and take me 
back for the same amount. He was pleasant, somewhat 
intelligent, with a clear voice and distinct pronunciation, 
and seemed pleased that he was able to tell me about the 
coming ceremony. He was half of this world and half 
of the other. I suppose it depends on which way in a 
man's nature one is going as to whether in the end you 
will think him altogether good or altogether bad. 

Passing a second time through this pecuniary purga- 
tory, and taking the steps two at a time, I reached the 
base of the temple. It was the next thing to reaHty, 
and while the masses waited for the hour of prayer, they 
indulged in conversation which might be said to be in 
the nature of worldly reminiscence. One so unfamiliar 
with the language as to be unable to catch thoughts 
from among the murmur of voices is left entirely out- 
side of things. But a word here and a word there is 
like a star-hole through which to peep into the outer 
world of light, or a pin-prick in a piece of paper through 
which to watch the sim. 

I felt I had come to the very heart of Buddhism. 
You cannot do so during the day, for its human defects 
are then too obvious. Even at midnight it is difficult 
to release yourself from recollections of known dis- 
crepancies. I tried to forget, to see it as it seems, and 
from the point of view of those who worship. They 
sit for hours upon the mats in the alcove-wings around 
the heart of the temple, body touching body. Some 
pray, others gossip, and not a few sleep. Others trot 
around the temple on the veranda. Is it penance for 
sins committed, or is the body unsouled trying to regain 
a little warmth by action? 

The temple is a roof without walls, and the wind 
moves about with searching curiosity. It stands high 
upon the hillside, supported by heavy wooden pillars. 



230 JAPAN—REAL AND IMAGINARY 

A door opens on each side of each wing into a small 
chamber not connected with the others except as all 
face the central chamber wherein is the brazen altar 
set with rice-cakes and candles. Here move and pray 
the priests. It resembles a prison or cage of heavy- 
wooden lattice- work. By day it is neither beautiful 
nor interesting, lacking paint and polish. At night 
the inner, inaccessible, unresponsive trinity of rice- 
cake, candle, and the human face become sources of 
light, color, and motion, flicker, glitter, and emotion. 
This is not Buddhist scripture, perhaps, but it is what it 
was to me, except when I remembered it as it was during 
the day. Being an impressionable person, I like things 
for what they seem fully as much as for what they are — • 
but because they seem to be that, and not because I 
accept them as reality. Now that I have returned to 
the world of matter again and attempt to recount my 
experiences, I keep asking myself: "But why did they 
carry out this performance at night? Is there anything 
wrong with the day?" 

Just within the priests* entrance, one sat holding a 
bundle of burning bamboo sticks, the ashes and cinders 
of which dropped into a flat earthen tray. Across the 
valley glowed soft city electric lights. What's wrong 
with electricity? Why the primitive torches? The re- 
ligions of the future will probably keep a stream of elec- 
trons issuing from a coil against a copper plate ? That is 
the way of human progress. So why worship with the 
torches of sticks? 

At fifteen minutes before midnight the priests began 
to strike their bells. Chatter and movement continued, 
while within was the chanting of prayer. For two hours 
those who had held to places on the mats continued their 
prayer; the others lined the steps and paths in antici- 
pation of the ceremony of breaking the seal of the sacred 
well — Kawash-no-i. Midnight and cold had no terrors 



A MIRACLE IN THE DARK 231 

for these old men and young girls. It was a still night, 
but a stillness owing to a heavy cold which had become 
immovable. I thought I would lose what little of the 
physical senses remained to me, my lower limbs feeling 
the weight of my body and the weight of the air. 

The approach to the sacred spring is down a short 
incline, at right angles to which is the walk and the 
steep set of stairs leading to the temple above. The 
well is said to be dry up to the moment the priests enter 
and after they depart with the last bucket of water. 
So I was about to witness the performance of a miracle. 
But evidently the people were used to it, for they showed 
none of the signs of religious emotion one expects from 
such crowds. From the point of view of a westerner 
with no religious bias, I must confess that this seemed 
somewhat bizarre. Men and boys clambered up stone 
lanterns and trees, in total absence of decorum. This 
is in a way a sign of health in Oriental religions. With 
other religions there is too much striving, too much dis- 
content, too much complaint of the lot of human exist- 
ence and exaltation of a future existence. But these 
people are either in utter despair or indifference, or so 
certain of their future as to feel no need for further 
effort. The contentions of western critics notwith- 
standing, there was an absence of strain and emotional 
display which was as delightful as it was strange. 

The hour had come. A bundle of sticks on the shoul- 
ders of one man behind another carrying a blazing 
torch of bamboo sticks in his hands. Perhaps I might 
symbolize even where no symbol was intended, and 
convince the reader that this meant to show that mat- 
ter pursues spirit ualization. But as fire is the active 
agent and pursues wood — the victim — so light and 
thought and emotion assail the body. 

Then two enormous red parasols appeared at the head 
of the steps, borne by two subordinate priests. Two 



232 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

torch-bearers followed with two long sheaves of sticks 
touching their flaming ends as they descended. Three 
water-carriers came after them, each with a yoke across 
his shoulder, on the ends of which, canopied in leaves, 
hung the basket on which stood the empty buckets. 
At the angle, the smaller torches were deposited on the 
ground and extinguished. The water-carriers passed 
down the incline to the door of the hut. All was sub- 
merged in darkness. A latch was heard to be unlocked 
and the door put aside. Still in darkness, the priests 
entered, remained a few minutes, and emerged — with 
buckets full of water. 

A miracle. Where shortly before there was no water 
at all water had been dipped. At the angle, small 
torches were again ignited and given the priests and they 
lighted the way of the chief priest and carriers, the pro- 
cession taking its initial form and ascending the steps to 
the temple. There the water was consecrated. Three 
times they came, taking forty minutes in all, and the 
ceremony was at an end. An end which had a beginning 
somewhere in the eighth century, with En-no-Gyoja, 
the anchorite priest, as the founder. "He lived in a 
cave on Katsurgi Mount for forty years, wore garments 
made of wistaria bark, and ate only pine-leaves steeped 
in spring water. During the night he compelled demons 
to draw water and gather firewood, and during the day 
he rode upon clouds of five colors."^ ''Legend says 
that when the founder dedicated the temple, the god of 
Onyu in the province of Wakasa begged leave to provide 
the holy water, whereupon a white and black cormorant 
flew out of the rock and disappeared, while water gushed 
forth from the hole. From that time the stream, which 
had flowed past the shrine of Onyu, dried up, its waters 
having been transferred to the Ni-gwatsu-do. Local 



^ Brinkley, History oj Japan. 



A DANGEROUS TEMPTATION 233 

lore tells of unbelievers having become convinced of the 
truth of the miracle by throwing rice-husks into the 
original spring in Wakasa, which reappeared after a due 
interval in the spring here at Nara." ^ 

Thousands of people stood round about watching. 
They were mainly from Osaka and Kyoto, I was told. 
I have yet to meet a Japanese, however, who has visited 
Nara for the purpose from any great distance. 

There were torches enough in use, but none, to my 
way of thinking, well directed. All threw light on the 
form and concealed the source. I nearly yielded to the 
temptation of throwing my flashlight upon the well, to 
see what was going on. True, from a rational point of 
view, hardly necessary, but to the faithful it might have 
been a new revelation. Iconoclastic boldness, however, 
so often meets with disaster, not only not accomplishing 
its aim, but sometimes even helping to exalt the super- 
stition it tries to destroy, that I had little difficulty in 
restraining myself. 

Thus I stood that night over my head in antiquity. 
Not that the West is so young as to preclude such oppor- 
tunities, but that human nature has a way of accepting 
things with which it is in constant association without 
question or detachment. ''You can see much more 
impressive ceremonies at All Saints' Church every 
Sunday, yet you don't go," objected a gentleman. 
Association is the secret of the tenacity with which cus- 
toms and rites are clung to. They become so much a 
part of one's experience that one fails to see that their 
primitiveness is inconsistent with enlightened thought. 
The mass of the religious, who accept with firmness the 
faith which is their heritage, would riddle with scorn the 
same tenets were they suddenly imposed upon them. 
But having associated their own actions with these con- 



* Chamberlain, Handbook for Japan. 



i34 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ceptions, they begin to feel that on that very account 
they are inspired. In other words, the grafted twig is 
accepted by the tree, the scar is concealed, and the fruit 
feels itself to be a genuine product and forgets the 
process. 

It was at Nara that Japan first became an empire; 
at Nara that Buddhism first took root; at Nara that 
Japanese art first found expression. Nara, apart from 
its mythological, historical, and religious associations, 
is one of the prettiest spots in Japan. But from the 
point of view of a city, when this is said there 
is little else to say. One must instantly fall back 
again to its romantic side. At ordinary times it is 
quiet and its verdure is a relief from rice-fields and con- 
fusion. But various and conflicting are the experiences 
when the tide of Japanese life again turns in the direc- 
tion of this — the birthplace of Japan. Emerging from 
a night in antiquity leaves one ready for a day in the 
present, but on holida^^s the present itself becomes 
steeped in antiquity. Besides numerous trips to Nara 
during week-ends, I spent five weeks at a stretch browsing 
about among the temples and the tumuli. Surely the 
Aino, that ill-fated race whom the Yamato, the well- 
fated race, drove northward, loved as dearly, if not as 
fiercely, this picturesque land. 

Twenty-five hundred years ago Jimmu Tenno, the 
first "divine" Emperor, stepped out of his celestial 
realms to conquer and to govern these islands. And 
to-day we are rushed with electric rapidity over regions 
fairly littered with the tombs of emperors whose identity 
cannot be definitely traced. Yet though inclined to 
discard these divine and imperial trappings with in- 
difference, it is strange that my residence at Nara 
afforded me associations with princes and nobility which, 
so far, no other place in the world has done. 

I had not been in Nara an hour before I discovered 



A THUG AND AN M. P. 235 

that Mr. Yukio Ozaki, the well-known liberal member of 
the Diet, was in the province electioneering. I asked 
the hotel clerk to let me know when the distinguished 
guest would come in. But Japanese are most timorous 
in the presence of great folk, and this one, instead of 
canying out my request, notified Mr. Ozaki. It was 
not hard for me to meet him, however, and after a short 
conversation he invited me to attend one of his meetings. 
And that brought me right into the midst of Japanese 
imperialism, for that day he was to speak at a little 
theater in Unebi, within three-quarters of a mile of the 
tomb of Jimmu Tenno. I arrived alone, but, being a 
foreigner, was graciously led to the stage where, with 
several other M. P.'s who were to speak, I waited the 
arrival of Mr. Ozaki. He came somewhat late in the 
afternoon. The little theater was fairly dark. The 
electric lights had not yet come on. Mr. Ozaki chatted 
with me while the other speaker was closing, and then 
stepped out upon the stage. I stood near the door, 
watching. The instant he appeared, cheers rose such as 
are seldom heard in far Japan. In ancient times, before 
such an exalted person they would have fallen to their 
knees. He who had dared to raise his eyes to an im- 
perial person forfeited them. But things are changing 
in Japan, try as imperialism will to restrain them. It 
did try that very moment. Hardly had the applause sub- 
sided when out of the darkened auditorium a figure in 
white leaped upon the stage in a murderous attack on 
the Minister. I had hardly time to see what was toward. 
The table was turned, and there upon the floor lay two 
men — the man in white underneath, pinned to the floor 
in a judo grip. But Mr. Ozaki stood aside, as straight 
and still and calm as a statue. An angry roar rose from 
the audience and it seemed to me the whole mass was 
rising toward us like a tide. Then, seeing their hero 
unperturbed, the people changed the roar into a cheer 



236 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

and Mr. Ozaki slowly commenced his speech. Though 
this is no unusual occurrence in Japan, I am told that no 
other foreigner has ever been present at such an attack. 

It is common for self -elected patriots who call them- 
selves soshi to intimidate any one with any hberal or 
impopular tendency. Mr. Ozaki afterward told me 
that he is frequently attacked, but never makes any 
attempt to defend himself, his own rigidity generally 
being his defense. He also said that he was speaking 
there for greater extension of democratic government. 
There, he said, in the presence of the tomb of the first 
Emperor, he pleaded for the people, because the Tenno 
himself had said that without the people he could 
not rule. 

Yet the sacredness of the Emperor none dares ques- 
tion. The tomb is close against a wooded hill, with a 
stone fence round it. One may only approach the outer 
gate and look off into the dell — and see nothing. Cam- 
eras are prohibited, as are sticks and umbrellas. It 
seems even love is shut out, though the green, the quiet, 
and the loveliness of nature induce it. 

Though royalty is not in my gallery of heroes, it 
was at Nara that I had my first acquaintance with it. 
On a day we learned that a prince was in our midst. 
We did not see him, we could not hear him, but the air 
was electric with his presence. Then, after sleeping 
beneath his exalted suite, I was informed that he was 
dining some of his officers in the small dining-room of the 
hotel. Looking through the veranda windows, I saw 
what seemed to me a wake. Prince Nashimoto sat at 
the side of the long table, with a vacant chair to either 
side of him, two officers at the head and the foot, and 
four opposite him. They did not look at one another, 
but bowed their heads to their plates. Their lips did not 
move, so far as I could see. This not being exciting, I 
went into the main dining-room for my own dinner and 



PRINCES— REAL AND IMAGINARY 237 

emerged again just as the Prince was being handed his 
sword by an officer. It was all done perfunctorily. I 
could not stand and look on, so brushed past him — and 
thereby must have done him an indignity, though imin- 
tentionally. But I thought that, it being a public hotel, 
even princes had to take their chances. 

A week later I had occasion to see another prince 
there. But what a contrast! We were advised that 
Prince Arthur of Connaught was to visit Nara. For 
days the hotel was upside down, being thoroughly reno- 
vated. Then we heard all sorts of rumors about restric- 
tions on our movements. We were not to use the main 
stairway. It was to be reserved for the royal party. 
We were not to have our usual places in the dining- 
room. In fact, all we were allowed to do was to pay our 
bills in the usual way. And outside soldiers were 
stationed. 

The day arrived. Everybody was full of expectation. 
Then across the pond divided by the main road we saw 
a string of rickshaws — ^it was the royal party. We were 
in the lobby when Prince Arthur stepped out of his 
rickshaw and entered. The rest of the party kept about 
ten feet behind him. He ascended the stairs with a 
suppressed beam upon his face. He was obviously 
amused. His intention had been to travel incognito and 
as a private citizen, but Nipponism would not have it. 
That evening he came to table in his street clothes, sat 
with his elbows on the table, gazed about the room ab- 
sent-mindedly, and tried to be as informal as he could, 
regardless of the fact that the Earl of Pembroke and half 
a dozen Japanese barons and marquises were trying to 
honor him. 

From Kobe had come four young men who tried their 
best to dishonor him. Two were Australian and one 
American, and all seemed imbued with the notion that 
the only way they could be democrats was by treating 



238 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

a prince contemptuously. They sent notes to ''Artie'* 
and made themselves so "congenial" that the earl, 
suspecting their motives, accepted their invitation to a 
drink. They were later invited to the police station 
and told to move to a tea-house as quietly as possible. 
Some other things went wrong. The night was misty 
and the fireworks made a noise, but no sparks. 

Next morning I was in the lobby, ready to depart for 
Kobe for the week-end. The royal party was about, ex- 
cept Prince Arthur. As he appeared at the head of the 
stairs they all rose, and when he was on the third from the 
last step they bowed. ' ' Good morning, gentlemen, ' ' said 
the Prince, and they answered, "Good morning." He 
passed on out to the rickshaw, they followed a dozen 
feet behind him, the coolies were on their knees, heads 
bowed forward, and the train moved down the road. 
I took a short cut and came out upon the main street 
to find a small crowd of Japanese at the comer. I 
pushed through and made my way along toward the 
station. Just then a Japanese in a rickshaw came past, 
about fifty feet ahead of the princely train. He scowled 
at me for my daring. I went on. A policeman, as stiff 
as a telegraph-pole, commanded me with the one word 
he knew to "Stop!" I worked my way by and obeyed. 
But there I was, the only foreigner on the street. As 
Prince Arthur passed the crowd he raised his hat to 
them and smiled, but never a sound nor a sign of enthu- 
siasm did they show. It was so amusing that when 
he passed me, not knowing how I should act before 
a prince, I raised my hat to him. He smiled know- 
ingly, and bowed and raised his hat in turn. He 
wanted to be treated like a man, it seemed, and was 
amused at the contrasts in the ways of the world. And 
I learned then, thinking of Prince Nashimoto, that 
after all a man is indeed a man for all that. 

Ill-content with the perpetual worship of living idols, 




SAID TO HAVE NOBLE BLOOD IN HIM, BUT JUST AS LIKELY AINO 



THE DAIBUTSU 239 

man seeks to materialize his ideals. The sad part of it 
is that in neither case is sufficient thought given to the 
question as to whether they are worth while. Idols 
are made and broken with tiresome regularity. Take 
the matter of Buddhism, which found its first friends at 
Nara. A plague came, and these friends suffered be- 
cause it was said that the strange idols brought it. 
The idols broken, the plague naturally continued, even 
became worse, and the idols were brought back again. 
After twelve hundred years of peace the enormous 
bronze image of Buddha known as the Daibutsu still 
stands within a tremendous wooden structure. It is the 
largest image in all Japan. Its measurements are the 
wonder of the world — even to one who has been inside 
the Statue of Liberty. It is neither male nor female, 
human nor divine. It lacks the fire of pagan impulse 
and the calm of Oriental indifference. The face is not 
ideal and conceals a strain of the voluptuary. The 
upraised hand, as though bidding silence, almost turns 
one away instead of holding one's attention. But it is 
silent and unfriendly, as different from the big Buddha 
at Kamakura as one man is from another. 

Not so the great bell at the temple above. Nothing 
of all the vast collection of antiquities in Japan is so rich 
in living quality as the bell at Nara. For twelve hun- 
dred years its reassuring boom has rung out across 
the hills. Wonderful is the sound of the temple bell; 
its firmness is a consolation to the weary. It does not 
call nor warn. It urges you neither to come to the 
temple nor to fear for your soul. It really tells you, 
like a loving parent, that all is well with the world. It 
responds to come who will, and booms out as earnestly 
for the child as for the grown-up, for the woman as for 
the man. And thus, all day long, the straggling visitors 
keep the thought of Buddha in the minds of a busy 

world. And when man goes off holidaying they make 
16 



240 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

the bell work the hardest. Any one who cares can 
strike it for a contribution of two sen to the temple. 

All the residents of Yamato district contributed to the 
flood which poured into Nara that holy day. Thou- 
sands of families packed the trains and electric cars, and 
the confusion dinned the world and stirred the dust of 
the roads. 

As much as Japan's picturesqueness appeals to the 
foreigner, he misses the green grass under his feet. 
Nara is the one place where he regains some of this 
earthly happiness. The park is lawned and the verdure 
most refreshing. Hundreds of deer roam about 
— arch-mendicants of this (spiritually speaking) easy- 
going world. Jumbo is not always known to have bad 
manners, yet we have to feed him through iron bars. 
Only a Thoreau and a Burroughs have enjoyed the 
friendship of wild animals without limiting their freedom. 
The lover of wild life receives a thrill of delight the first 
time a gentle, fleet-footed deer stands before him, 
bowing his head in Japanese humility, begging for little 
brown biscuits. Why, one is ready to go away with the 
feeling that nowhere in the world are animals more for- 
tunate than in Japan. Where else would such alert 
timidity put its heart at rest? But the resident soon 
learns with regret that such is not the true state of 
affairs. His regret turns to fury and anger when he sees 
the cruelty animals are subjected to because of the per- 
version of principle. Buddhism had enjoined that no 
life be taken, so selfishness finds a way out of it by neg- 
lect, as pointed out in my chapter on recreation. 

There was a shogun about two hundred years ago, 
Tsunayoshi by name, who lost his son. He was stricken 
sore with grief. A priest told him that in a former in- 
carnation he had been cruel to animals, especially dogs, 
and that he could assure himself of another son if he 
not only refrained from taking life, but gave special 



THE DOG MANIA 241 

protection to dogs. Forthwith went out an edict for- 
bidding harm to any dog, and the consequence was 
that dogs multipHed by the thousands. In Tokyo a 
giant kennel was raised, and everywhere dogs were 
treated better than human beings. In fact, for the Hfe 
of a dog, the taking of which Buddhism proscribed, the 
shogim ordered the taking of many a human Hfe. That 
a man should become so warped in his thinking seems 
incredible. It ended in the destruction of crops and 
intense suffering, but no son came to the fanatic. And 
though the edict was removed. Buddhism even to-day 
results in animal suffering, because Japanese will not 
take life. 

Idols, heroes, symbols, love of Emperor, patriotism, 
religion — ^intrinsically good are soon made unrecog- 
nizable because the form is made more fuss over than 
the quality. 

Nara is the national ideal of Japan. It was here that 
Buddhism found its first stanch supporter in a de- 
scendant of the gods — Prince Shotoku — and but a few 
miles away stands one of the oldest wooden struct- 
ures in the world — Horiuji Temple. Were one not 
watchful of some light which these innumerable efforts 
in as many different stages of preservation throw upon 
the history of human ideals one would indeed weary of 
this monotony. 

Thus at Nara, as everywhere else in Japan, in the very 
midst of tombs, Buddhas, and natural beauty, mankind 
is just what it is anywhere else in the world. It seeks a 
good time, paying little or no attention to both Buddha 
and the bell. 

Here is a picture of Nara of to-day. Open tea-houses 
(or sheds) with red blankets upon the mats are full of 
merrymakers. Geisha dancing, men drinking, and all 
singing, their good spirits pouring out into the void. 
The Japanese, as soon as he is drunk, loses all control 



242 JAPAN—REAL AND IMAGINARY 

over his generosity. The foreigner who happens across 
his path instantly comes in for attention which he hardly 
knows how to take. They fairly dragged me into their 
midst, one man holding me and another trying to remove 
my shoes so that I might sit on the mats. I had to 
remonstrate with them. Everything there was placed 
at my disposal, and cordiality flowed as freely as the 
beer and sake. The shouting and singing from tea- 
house to tea-house is an interesting commentary on the 
tea ceremony of which one reads so much. Had the 
zealous priest known that by cutting off his eyelids 
because they betrayed him into dozing while he should 
have been at prayer, he would give to the world so little 
of what he prayed for, he would surely have saved him- 
self his pains. Instead of the quiet and the cloistered 
abstraction, tea-houses are the noisiest places on the 
face of the earth. 

Pleasure does not confine itself to the sheds. Two 
little girls, dressed like geisha, with their little brother 
in the costume of the samurai, acted a thrilling scene 
on the grass near the road. Their mother accompanied 
them on the samisen. Minstrelsy is still a pretty feature 
of Japanese life. 

Nara is a backward city, commercially speaking. 
Everybody claims to go to Nara to enjoy the past, but 
the people of the city are now hankering after the 
glitter of the present. And as a token of gratitude for 
a favor I had rendered, an official sent me, at Christmas, 
not a relic of old Japan, but a dozen fine Irish-linen 
handkerchiefs. 




XV 

A MONK FOR A NIGHT 

AIIGHT now be v%'andering about with a 
smooth-shaven head, in a flowing crape gown 
of bronze silk with exquisitely embroidered 
lapels, were it not for that young American. 
His theosophical mother placed him in a 
Buddhist monaster}' in Japan as a novice for the priest- 
hood. He remained there two years and quit. Now 
it is impossible for any one else to get in except as a tem- 
porary- guest. Despite this curtailment of monastic 
privileges, I determined to know what it is to be a monk 
in Japan, and set out for Koya-san, an hour's ride by train 
from Nara, one of the oldest monasteries in the Tenno's 
empire. Like most of the Japanese monasteries Koya-san 
is beautifully secluded from the sordid world by wood- 
land and hilltop. Though it is reached from all the 
centers by either train or electric car, these come only to 
Koya-guchi and Hashimoto at the foot of the mountain. 
Thence there is a ten-mile walk along a winding road 
which rises for over a thousand feet. And for more 
than a thousand years the road has been kept open by 
the passage of pilgrims, day in and day out, and the 
bodies and bones and monuments of the dead followed 
in their footsteps. 

Forestalled once before by deluge and typhoon from 
making the ascent in summer, I now braved the sleet 
and snow of winter unyieldingly. The way was astir 



244 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

with pilgrims. Pack-horses wobbled up and down the 
grade, led by listless laborers in stiff leather moccasins. 
Their limbs were stripped bare as though summer, not 
winter, were the order of the day. I rather envied their 
naked freedom. 

At the first red ''sacred" bridge the steepest portion 
of the ascent is over. Beyond the second we stand 
before the gate. Here sits the bronze Jizo, god of 
travelers, protector of pregnant women and of children, 
exposed in semi-exile. Now, that is just like most gods. 
If Jizo is such a remarkable patron of weary wanderers, 
why wasn't he down there at the foot of the mountain, 
ready to assist me to the top ? After you have done all 
the work and struggled over the arduous journey, there 
he sits, complacent and pleasant. 

As a matter of fact, despite his function as protector 
of feminine weakness, Jizo has been as indifferent to 
women as to wanderers. Until recently no mother of 
man might pass through the gate that he guards. Yet 
he was set to watch there by a devout woman. How 
like a mother to present so benevolent a god to man 
and child while being herself excluded by man from 
reaching the final goal ! 

I soon found some one more attentive than Jizo. A 
pleasant clerk looked me up and down, reflecting upon 
his observations before assigning me to a temple hostelry. 
Never was I judged more accurately, and never was my 
purse tapped so judiciously as that, my first and only 
night in a monastery. The little boy of six assigned to 
guide me trudged ahead on his four-inch wooden clogs. 
The road lazed its way along the level of the ravine, 
lined on the right by trinket-stores. 

Snow lay six inches deep, adding delitescence to the 
monastery, shut in by forest and mountain. The 
numerous temples to the left crouched behind their 
walls, only the roofs protruding. The vastness of their 



CANDLES FOR BUDDHA 245 

architectural enterprise was rivaled only by the tumuli 
of the dead, which stretch for more than a mile through 
the grove of cryptomerias beyond. 

I entered the gate of the monastery which stood at the 
edge of the graveyard. The acolytes on the veranda 
scurried in for one of the priests, in a way which made 
me feel myself a guest with no ordinary possibilities. 
They assigned me to a room neat and clean, with only 
wooden bars four inches square to remind me of the 
nature of the place. Otherwise the straw mats, the 
screens and tokonoma (alcove for pictures and flower 
arrangement) , were of better material than may be found 
at most inns. Only in one detail was the room different 
from any other Japanese room: there was a concrete 
fire-box two feet square set into the mats, besides the 
usual braziers, which showed that on Koya-san winter 
is winter. Sitting on the mats before it, it was easy to 
keep one's feet warm over the charcoal. Without, the 
rippling water of the serpent fountain and the remem- 
brance of snow; within, the paper sliding windows 
shutting in the world. 

Not such a bad life, after all. At least the joys of hot 
water have not been proscribed along with wine, women, 
and meat. I forthwith go to the bath, a chamber dark 
and cell-like, and open to the winter cold. I keep well 
in the hot water, nor loiter in the corridors between. 

There is loud laughter in the courtyard. One boy 
has broken out into song. All subsides as quickly and 
as suddenly as it began — and the rippling waters of the 
fountain continue. . . . Then come soft footsteps in the 
corridor. It is the bronze-silked priest with the register. 
... At the same time he asks for one or two yen for 
candles for Buddha. I am to rise to prayer with them 
at five. Well, I like old Buddha, though I feel sure he 
will receive but a fraction of that gift. I dare say 



246 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Buddha can do well without money, though he seems to 
have an insatiable appetite for candles. 

Just as the priest stepped out and pulled the paper 
doors to, a crowd of workmen or pilgrims came into the 
courtyard below, chatting and laughing. How like the 
shifting of the scenes on a stage is this life, as though 
each incident waited for its turn through want of stage 
accommodation! The moments lengthen, the murmur 
of the water without regains its place in consciousness, 
and the monastic prominence of the individual comes into 
its own again. 

Gradually, as the diffused light through the paper 
windows grows dimmer and dimmer, the dull-red char- 
coal in the volcano-like pit on the floor looms brighter 
and brighter, just as in the recurring night of the world 
the sun's brilliance wakes us to our day again. 

I have neighbors now. They have taken the room on 
the other side of the paper doors. In the sense of space 
it can no doubt be called a room, but never in the sense 
of privacy. From the latter point of view, it is really a 
heya, which in Japanese means a room or apartment. 
There is a suitable sound of commotion in the word. 
What a room in a Japanese house really comes to is that 
all can make all kinds of noises unabashed. 

Four booms of the evening bell startle me out of 
reverie. They are bells of which Poe would have made 
wonderful use. Not so resonant as those at the great 
temples of Nara and Maya-san. A boy shouts to others 
across the court as though hurrying them on to assembly. 
Another answers. One sings a droning song popular in 
the large cities. A cough from my neighbor. Footsteps. 
And every fourth ring of the bell is echoed by a reverberant 
grumbling of a softer bell somev/here in the distance. 

The acolyte comes in to turn on the electric light. 
Even in a monastery there is electricity. Modernism is 



A MONK AND HIS FARE 247 

epidemic. There is modernism in other ways — ^namely, 
in the presence of women in the village outside the 
monastery. Hitherto they had no souls to save, not- 
withstanding the sweet devotion of Yasodhara to Sid- 
dhattha before he became Buddha. There is still another 
bit of modernism. Though only canine beasts were 
tolerated at Koya-san, because the local deity, who was 
fond of hunting, had promised Kobo Daishi, the founder, 
to protect his monastery, I saw bullocks and horses, and 
if I'm not mistaken the animal I photographed was a 
cow. Kariba Myohin, the Shinto god, has evidently 
been converted to modernism. However, a little ab- 
surdity is still necessary to religion. Why the ban con- 
tinues on bamboo I cannot understand. 

Faintly the drawl of a priest gets a hearing in spite of 
the rippling fountain. 

I dine. The acolyte seems remarkably free from 
acquisitiveness. He has brought my dinner and moves 
about as though pleased to serve. He is neither atten- 
tive nor sullen. He has an able assistant in the form of 
a small boy who is about twelve years old — so is the dirt 
on his hands and shirt. The acolyte departs, leaving 
the abridged edition of himself to wait upon me. He's 
a cynical little fellow for honest twelve. He can't 
make me out, and doesn't care, either. He watches me 
eat and turns his head aside as soon as I look at him, 
but answers every question straightforwardly — as far 
as his knowledge goes. He has a father and mother, 
but doesn't know what country he came from. That 
was a stupid question and I shouldn't have asked it. 
He's from Japan, and who would dare to probe deeper 
than that? One dare not suggest him to be Korean or 
Chinese. In Japan one must regard every one as of 
Yamato origin for the sake of /peace and tranquillity. 

Well, I've eaten, nor, I am sure, did a chicken even so 



248 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

much as walk through my soup or soups; there were 
four of them. Beef? The nearest I got to anything in 
that line was perhaps in the fact that the bullock pulled 
the wagon that brought it. Yet they all look healthy 
and happy, nor would I repeat the vulgarism of all 
carnivorous human beings that * ' they must slip out to a 
meat-shop on the sly." 

Truth to tell, there is more than meat and fish on the 
outside of this monastery. The rickshaw man told me 
so, and I have reason to believe that on some points 
rickshaw men are as truthful as . . . My rickshaw man 
said he didn't care for women, preferring sake. He as- 
sured me both were obtainable in the village. 

But that's not my interest, and the blasphemous in- 
sinuation might cost one dear. We'll not insinuate. 
Why do so when there are facts? Sake, the wine of the 
Far East, was brought to me, assumed to be part of the 
meal as wine is in continental Europe. It went back 
humiliated and scorned by an unconverted heathen of 
the West. Not so the other offerings within this temple. 
The four soups consumed, I took to the rice and daikon 
(a pickled radish, which smells like the dickens) and 
other soured vegetables, after which went precipitately 
some hard, tasty, black beans. Could a monk in the 
making start off more hopefully than that? By to- 
morrow I may have a different opinion, but to-day, to- 
night? I could say my prayers with a gusto. 

So, it seems, I shall close my first evening in a monas- 
tery. For a moment I think back to old Japan, live a 
flash of life as it has been lived in these ancient halls for 
centuries. Here that life is not merely historical con- 
sciousness, but vigorous reality. But the historical 
vision has slipped away and is disinclined to return. 

After midnight I am wakened by the song of some 
monk. The stillness of the night and his deep, sad voice 



A SANCTUARY OF SHADOWS 249 

make what in the cities is a common tune pathetically 
human, sadly sweet and wholesome. I lie within the 
packs of futon, warm and comfortable. Horrors! I 
promised to rise to say my prayers to Buddha and paid 
two yen for the privilege. The candles will be burned 
out. How I wish these pious offices could be postponed. 
But the priest comes to wake me and I bolt out of bed. 
In the other compartments the stir of pilgrims, their 
coughing and washing, assures me I'm not the only 
mortal so penalized. 

Now through the snow-cold corridors which zigzag 
for at least two hundred feet the droning of priests and 
monks shows that, eager as I am to taste of a new ex- 
perience, they are more faithful to an old. It is but 
5.15 A.M. Yet as I enter the temple it is plain they have 
well advanced in prayer. It is easy for my eyes, just 
rescued from sleep, to make their immaterial way about 
that sanctuary of shadows where darkness trembles with 
droning and flickers with candle-Hght. The long, narrow 
room allows only for a side view of the setting. The 
altar in the middle is flanked by lacquered and gilded 
little shrines to the end of the chamber. The gilt upon 
the black lacquer is hke the candle flame in the darkness. 
The profuse arrangement of massive lacquer tables 
laden with symbols and offerings, and the beautiful little 
tables for the sutras before each monk, are joy in the 
midst of emotion sorrowing. The long line of monks sit- 
ting upon their knees, with their backs to the paper doors 
(shoji) , leaves of the room but a narrow aisle, so that the 
pilgrim must occupy the space to the right. There are 
thirty of these suffering souls, all old and worked out. 
What an emaciated-looking gathering! The priests 
and monks are handsome in comparison. But even age 
softens in the presence of flickering candles and undying 
chants. 

The head priest sits a little forward. The monks 



250 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

repeat the sutras rapidly, and then out of their prayer 
rises, like some rich flowering, the voice of the head 
priest. His assurance is short and absolute. The 
others resume their chanting. Once they stop short 
and from among them soars a deep, rich voice, followed 
once again by the entire mass. 

It strikes me as an extremely non-individualistic per- 
formance. The pilgrims don't enter in at all. Later 
each is called to the altar to put incense on the burner, 
and Buddhist symbols are pointed out — ^tablets of an- 
cestors. I, too, am called — and service is at an end. 

I breakfast on the same sort of food as that on which I 
had supped, except for the plateful of mochi (rice dough) 
arranged like a chrysanthemum and showered with 
colored meal. As I push aside the paper windows above 
the court the priest sees me and comes up to my room. 
He has, I discover, good reasons for coming. Since the 
restoration of the Emperor to real power Shintoism, 
the cult of Emperor and ancestor and nature- worship, 
is being fostered, though Buddhism is still nearest the 
hearts of the people. The imperial exchequer feathers 
the Shinto nest, and Buddhist priests find life more diffi- 
cult. Hence they must make the most of a casual guest 
like me. Though entertainment at these monasteries is 
supposed to be free of charge, gratuities equivalent of 
what one would pay at a first-class inn are expected. 
The bronze-silked priest does not wait for me to settle 
my "accounts," though I have already given him candle 
money. He receives my contribution with greedy ease. 
Hardly has the money touched his hand when he asks 
for a "present" for the very boys he had told me not to 
tip the night before. It is all so cheap and so funny. He 
exacts all he can, but takes good care to call the graft, 
each time, a "present." 

When this commercial transaction is completed, a boy 



A WORLD OF TOMBS 251 

is sent to guide me through the cemetery. He doesn't 
know a word of EngHsh. Chamberlain says he is a 
cicerone, but I don't know. At any rate, he doesn't 
sing into my ear the myriad names of dead who left no 
record of themselves other than tombstones. 

The world is full of cemeteries, but nowhere is a ceme- 
tery so full of life. In the midst of a grove of giant 
cryptomerias between whose towering branches float 
small patches of sky like the small patches of snow lying 
at their feet, hundreds of weathered monuments eye one 
another in cynical regard, and the gray stone, grown 
darker with age, stands in mute testimony to the un- 
dying fear of being forgotten. Yet out of that vast 
collection of stones only an occasional name is not lost 
upon the passer-by. What a vast mobilization of dead 
heroes! A place in the village cemetery seemed too 
humble to them. They had their ashes or bones brought 
there from the farthest regions of Japan, only to lose in 
prestige through vain assumption. General, saint, 
scholar, all looked with hope for eternal fame in this 
vast galaxy of the dead, and those very pretensions 
brought humiliation upon them. For the very merchant 
upon whom they looked with contempt is now outdoing 
them. The narikin {nouveau riche), with his vast war 
profits, is rearing tombs and monuments which far out- 
shine their ancient simplicity. A thousand years from 
now they, too, will be as shabby as the others, but they 
are on the whole better and more human than the 
ancient piles of stones. 

Relatives of those not so fortunate as to be able to 
have their bodies brought here and tombs set upon 
them save a tooth or the Adam's apple and send 
it wrapped in paper to be thrown into a circular 
building containing the teeth or bones of thousands of 
others. 

Thus everything aims to symbolize the numerical 



252 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

strength of the dead, even the flickering candles whicli 
nod by the thousands, in honor of the disembodied souls, 
in a chamber stored with black darkness. Yet the Hall 
of Ten Thousand Lamps is no longer lit to its full candle- 
power and looks like the mouth of an old man with 
empty places where teeth had been. 

The tomb of Kobo Daishi himself stands behind this 
Hall. It is only a small, unimportant-looking little 
shrine on a slope studded with cryptomerias. The 
nearest any one can approach is to the wooden fence. 
Here the saint is said to be sitting, wrapped in contem- 
plation. 

Yet better than following the trails to the tombs of 
dead saints is meeting with the kindly smile of the 
oldest living man. 

It is now late enough in the morning for me to be able 
to examine the works of art. Here one pursues Kobo 
Daishi from one corridor to another. Soft-painted 
panels of men of wisdom hang in the shadows and glit- 
tering brass trappings that illustrate Buddhist verities 
are set before them. Screens of various degrees of 
beauty painted by the best of the old artists. ... But 
the bronze-silked priest seems eager now to be done 
with me. He does not see that a real worshiper, not a 
hypnotized faith-swallower, has come. He opens the 
shrine in which stands an image of Kobo Daishi carved 
by the great saint himself (everything imder the Rising 
Sun seems to have been the work of his hands). He 
offers me a small replica of the saint for five yen, for 
which the curio-dealer accustomed to cheating tourists 
asks only two. He leads me from one empty chamber 
to another, repeating explanations interspersed with a 
dash of commercialism, urging me to buy images and 
scrolls — all this to one who had come to imbibe inspira- 
tion and relief from commerce. Such is the state to 
which Buddhism has come in Shinto Japan. He points 



THE DAIDOKORO 253 

out only the gifts of the rich — a shrine-incased tablet 
costing a hundred yen, a special recess for the shrines of 
the heads of Mitsui Bishi Kaisha, the great banking 
concern, and Kawasaki of the Kawasaki Dockyards, and 
Suzuki, of Suzuki & Co., whose Kobe properties were 
destroyed by the rioters for forcing up the price of rice 
last year. 

Then we are shown the room in which Hidetsugu, the 
adopted son of Hideyoshi, the great general, committed 
harakiri by order of his benefactor. It is quiet and un- 
pretentious, and stimulates strange reveries. But the 
** guide" is impatient and keeps pulling me away. We 
drift away from this, however, lose ourselves behind 
shoji (paper doors) and corridors, pass from temple to 
temple, and return by another way to the one in which I 
had stayed the night. When I ask to be shown the 
priests' quarters, he says, ''It's too dirty." Buddhism 
is as ashamed of poverty as is every creed on the face of 
the earth. But I do manage to get into the daidokoro, 
the big kitchen. A tremendous room with heavy 
rafters, it is set with a watering-trough, store, and fire- 
places large enough to feed an army. Water from a 
spring comes in a thin, steady stream through a bamboo 
pipe. Around the open fire squat a dozen men and boys. 
The flames cannot reach any of the rafters, but the 
smoke fills the tremendous shaft (about ten feet long by 
twelve feet) which hangs from the roof to within six 
feet of the ground. In semi-darkness men pound with 
heavy wooden hammers and turn with dexterous hands 
the mochi (rice dough) which at New Year's is the 
delight of every Japanese, even a priest. They are like 
underground dwarfs with their fires and their pound- 
ing. These kitchens are more interesting than the 
unused chambers of the abbot with their screens and 
settings. 

The last place to visit is the Kondo or Golden Hall. 



254 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

It is a gorgeous amassing of Buddhist art with some 
exquisite details. Unbiased as I am, I must confess it 
tires me. There is too much sheen and too little in- 
spiration, bent on teaching more the hatefulness of evil 
than the loveliness of good. 

I have seen it all now — and I tremble before the 
covetous eyes of that priest in bronze silk. So I leave 
him to count his yen, and carry away with me a lovely 
memory and some solemn thoughts. 

The Buddhism that I have seen is a tainted and a 
vanishing thing. Dear as it is to the hearts of common 
men, it languishes under the imperial government. 
Shinto shrines have been stripped of all the Buddhist 
symbols they once contained, and officialism is doing its 
best to supplant the worship of Buddha by the worship 
of the Tenno. Bereft of the imperial gold, the priests 
are resorting to all manner of means of securing funds. 
In and about Kobe and elsewhere they are pursuing a 
thriving business by saving the souls of the june-narikin, 
who have grown rich on war profits. Out of the large 
donations which they require to assure the salvation of 
these new millionaires, they are erecting stone columns 
engraved with the names of the donors. Of these there 
are now more than eighty-eight in and about Kobe. 
Some priests have gone even farther. Otani, brother- 
in-law of the Emperor and abbot of one of the biggest 
temples in Japan, caused a scandal by selling the tem- 
ple's treasures. He took to western ways and built a 
palace for himself upon one of the mountains near Kobe, 
bringing back with him from a trip to England two young 
boys who were to act as pages. These were not quite 
satisfied with the way the promises materialized and 
obtained their release by recourse to the help of the 
foreign community. His palatial residence has since 
been bought by Mr. Kohara, the Japanese copper-king. 
This practical abbot has now resigned and is wander- 




HIDEYOSHI S TOMB LOOKS DOWN THROUGH THIS TORII UPON A CITY HE ROSE 

TO RULE 



-^ '^^. *»^ 



i » .■* % 







I. 



THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND KOREAN EARS AND NOSES NOURISH THESE 

ALIEN FLOWERS 



1 "^ 




LAKE BIWA LIES STRETCHING NORTHWARD, COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY 

MOUNTAINS 



.l^lliil^^gll 


& 


iHMHH 




^b^^^S^^^Hp^ "iKfcwrffiJ] 


ir i||||,|^ [fi ^ W ' ' 


^3iff'^^^^^*^^^^^*l|y^]p^ 


^^m^^HHIpIi.^ -H) 


■^ " IM ,,;^S55?J" ^ V.J 


-.1 


NSHiil^^^llHHHIHHHHHHHiiHMM»<6^ •>ar .aHiHIH 



MINAMIZA, THE LARGEST THEATER IN KYOTO, UPON THE EAST BANK OF THE 

KAMOGAWA 



J 



BARTER AND BUDDHA 255 

ing about the South Seas, trying to establish ideal 
colonies. 

So it is that the joy of barter pervades the worship 
of Buddha. Imperial divinity seeks to triumph over 
the saint whom common men have loved for over a 
thousand years. 
17 




XVI 

CLASSICAL JAPAN — KYOTO 

' YOTO first came into my life as a prohibition. 
In the full flush of adventurous prospects I 
had set Japan as my goal and was ready to 
sail across the Pacific, but for one thing — I 
could not get passage. And the reason for 
the rush was that Kyoto was about to see the one 
hundred and twenty-second Emperor placed upon the 
throne. So I set off for Australia, instead. Two years 
later I was fully determined to take up my residence 
there for a spell, but fate again kept me away. Finally, 
after making several hurried visits, but always being 
swerved in other directions, I succeeded in weighing 
anchor — in the deepest sea of classical Japan. I do not 
regret these delays, for it seems that a traveler, like the 
navigator, should try his skill on inland waterways be- 
fore venturing upon the ocean. 

History passes judgment on the greatness of cities as 
on men. The picturesque inconsequence into which 
Nara has sunk is fame commensurate only with the 
mythology it grew up in. Fable may be a good stimu- 
lant to youth; maturity requires a surer soil to nourish 
it. It was, then, the acme of real wisdom on the part of 
Emperor Kwammu when he removed his palace from the 
land of shifting Mikados — Yamato — to Kyoto. Lovely 
as are the hills in Yamato, the plains of Yamashiro are 
more so. From a geographical point of view, it cannot 
be said that the new site was an improvement in itself, 



« 



THE CITY OF PEACE 257 

yet it has a vital bearing on the history of Japan. From 
being conquerors, Hving on the edge of the conquered ter- 
ritory for some seven hundred years, the Japanese moved 
farther inland. Kyoto is really the heart of Japan — of 
the Japan of yesterday, of to-day, of to-morrow. It lies 
on the way between all the important points of the 
island. At that time, with national unity anything but 
established, it is certain that nationalization would have 
been an impossibility had the capital been elsewhere. 

Kyoto lies on a wide plain with a horseshoe of moun- 
tains around it, the opening being toward Osaka on the 
Inland Sea. Beyond the hills to the east lies Biwa-ko, 
the largest lake in Japan. Within the hills to the south 
runs the Hodzugawa, a river whose rapids tear along 
between boulders and precipices till they reach the 
southern plains. From the north comes the Kamogawa 
and the Takanogawa, which meet and make their com- 
panionable way through the heart of the city, giving it a 
distinction and a charm incomparable. 

Whatever has happened elsewhere in Japan is foreign 
to it. In Kyoto the blood of these people has been 
spilled, the good and the bad, the noble and the ignoble; 
the art and the reality of life found substance out of 
which to make a world. Within the radius of these few 
miles more sorrow and more joy have flourished than in 
all the rest of the Empire combined. And Kyoto has 
withstood it all with real genius. With the greatness 
of genius it has taken its cue from life and played its 
part. Swept by fire and plague, wracked by conqueror 
and would-be conqueror, infested by charlatan and 
would-be priest — Kyoto has stood in sweet simplicity, 
mocking the would-be assassin and minimizing the 
would-be god, and remaining the city of beauty and peace 
withal. The Mikado sought to keep out the foreign 
barbarians — and, thanks to him who looks after real 
worth in life and saves it from annihilation — he sue- 



258 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ceeded. The foreign and native barbarians, the bar- 
barians who would turn everything to trade without 
soul — these have been kept out of Kyoto. 

Yet Kyoto is not behind time. It is as modem as 
any city in Japan. It has more street-cars than Kobe, 
its buildings are as fine and up-to-date as any in the 
Empire. But it seems that modernism when it reaches 
Kyoto is bereft of much that is vulgar or becomes 
purified. 

No city I have so far seen in the Far East has in it the 
makings of so fine a world metropolis as has Kyoto. 
Its wide avenues, its leisurely spirit in which dreams 
count for as much as profit, even its people, Japanese 
like all Japanese, are still, it seems, a thousand ages 
ahead of the others in real civilization. Kyoto plays its 
part — ^not to charm, which is such a deceptive thing to 
do (and Kyoto is no flirt), but it simply opens its doors 
for you to come and live there if you will. But to 
fawn upon you — it is too much of an artist for that. 

The children play on the streets, the narrow lanes are 
full of busy folk, women and men sharing their labors 
as in no other civilized country. The restaurants are 
cleaner, more refined, and more truly westernized than 
in Kobe. Men come in for foreign meals with dignity 
and bearing, clean in person and refined in manner. At 
one of the numerous bridges which span the Kamogawa— - 
swift -flowing water sifting the moonlight — crowds pass, 
cheerful, picturesque, without swagger. Two little 
girls with most elaborate ornamentation, almost like 
Christmas trees, go happily on their way. Men are 
slightly drunk, enjoying themselves. Then the moving- 
picture theater lets out a lively, lightly clad throng. 
The box-oflice says, ''Admission for a cheat Yi." That 
is, any Japanese or foreigner who must have so unneces- 
sary a thing as a seat should pay double for it. Then 
a Japanese addresses me in an English not to be mis- 



i 



PRESTIGE IN INTIMACY 259 

taken — he lived in Nebraska for twenty years. We go 
to a large refreshment -place on the river bank. It is 
cheap, but the crowd is interesting. Some foreigners 
arrive — a party of poor Russians — mother and children — 
one little girl dressed in Japanese kimono; a party of 
well-to-do Russians who later drive away in a limousine. 
This is a little picture of Kyoto life. 

To look down this river on a moonlight night and see 
its banks alight with tea-houses in full flush of summer 
happiness is to wish once and for all one were a Japanese 
with no knowledge of other ways and customs to drag 
him back to dullness. 

And to look toward one's left along the broad Shijo- 
dori, the main street of the city, is to wish one were a 
business man with a little shop on that spacious street 
with its thousands of electric eyes. No city in Japan 
is so well laid out, and no street so well lighted. And 
yet no place in the Orient is so conservative, so ' * unpro- 
gressive," so satisfied with the part it has played in 
Nipponese life. Grateful is the seeker after peace when 
he comes to Kyoto. 

Wherever the eye turns it is met with verdure and 
art in thoughtful orderliness. When the stm rises its 
radiance tips a dozen temples, pagodas, and tombs of 
great men, and as impartially lights up the hills to the 
west where stands the Golden Pavilion. When it sets 
it eclipses the latter and gilds with its last light 
this dreaming world. There are cities about which one 
can say much in general, but which, when examined 
closely, are found wanting; cities like Fuji-san, which 
from the distance is divine — within touch, ashes and 
cinders. Not so Kyoto. Revel in its vast expanse as 
long as one will, it never loses prestige in intimacy. 
And lest it appear that I am carried away by general 
impressions, I shall picture each phase of its outer life 
as it makes its way within the cycle of a year. 



26o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Winter gives us its New Year festivals, spring its 
blossoms, summer the Gion matsuri, fall the maple 
leaves; and the whole is closely drawn by the pursuit 
of art, which even in these days will not yield its soul, 
however much it sells its body, to the toils of the slave. 

New Year's Eve in Kyoto is different from what it 
was last year in Kobe. There a certain display was 
evident which in spite of its obvious narikinisnij was 
pleasant and interesting. It looked so like a new suit. 
But here in Kyoto the Happy New Year symbols of 
sawed-off bamboo set amid short pines in a round base 
of logs two or three inches thick and eighteen inches 
high, and tied with straw rope, are more shabby where 
seen, and seen less frequently. These gate decorations, 
and others of mochi (large cakes of rice dough) 
on greens topped with a large lobster and an unedible 
orange — both of which symbolize longevity — are by no 
means elaborate. The streets are here and there strung 
with colored paper bunting. After dark I wandered 
about the unfrequented byways. Everything was set- 
tling into inactivity. Door-steps were being washed and 
sprinkled with water. But on the business streets both 
patrons and proprietors seemed more hurried than 
usual. 

But Kyoto would be nothing at all were it like any 
other place in Japan, and like none other it plays its 
part honestly, picturesquely, and without ostentation. 
So at five in the afternoon the priests at the Shinto 
temple — Gion — borrow some fire from a sacred urn 
which, according to the knowledge of the average, has 
burned there without being once extinguished from time 
immemorial. They distribute it among the numerous 
burners which hang under the eaves on the temple 
veranda. Here half a dozen of them dispense its 
generous flame to the multitude. 
\ From that hour the whole of Shijo-machi is an al- 



J 



PERENNIAL FIRES 261 

temating current of humanity. On the left it makes 
its way to the shrine, purchasing five-foot ropes of 
straw and bamboo from hawksters shouting, ''Hinawa, 
go sen'' {Hinawa being a rope-match for a match-lock, 
five sen). Many of the venders look like maidens with 
streams of hair from their heads; others like women 
with marumage, a Japanese woman's style of hair-dress. 
On the right-hand side the return current is a picture of 
shadows twirling little sparks as they move along. 
They have been to the shrine. There are strange rituals 
in the world, but for simplicity none compares with this. 
At the steps leading to the shrine the crowd is thick. 
On the way up the path it lingers before the usual toys 
and trinkets. It is slow and undramatic. At this 
shrine, on the night of the 24th of July, joy and voluptu- 
ous paganism stir the passions in men. Now they 
move quietly, stop at the various outposts upon which 
dispensations of fire are hung to relieve the rush, and 
light the ends of their ropes. Some are to be satisfied 
with no half -measures, but insist on getting their fire 
from the fountain-head. They press on, handing their 
rope-ends to the priests on the balcony, who, having 
gathered a handful, stick the ends in the fire. Then, 
because the tangled ropes to which each owner holds 
tenaciously cannot be disentangled, the priest dashes 
the burning ropes back upon them, giving them a bap- 
tism of fire not without its danger. At times it seems a 
baby riot may ensue, but, each having regained his rope, 
the group passes quickly on and another rushes to fill 
the vacancy. The priests give no impression of emo- 
tional interest nor of impatience. And thus the hun- 
dred thousand homes which make up the city of Kyoto 
are all afforded some sacred fire with which to start the 
first breakfast of the new year. 

On the morning of the next day the usual visiting 
commences, most people having slept but two or three 



262 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

hours. Here at the hotel I am invited to special break- 
fast, served with such a display of beautiful lacquer- ware 
as makes me feel these are indeed a wonderful people. 

The New Year visits becoming a nuisance, many send 
cards by mail and others meet their friends at some public 
building to exchange greetings. But Kyoto's theater 
district is alive with traffic of all kinds. Every restau- 
rant being closed, for the employees of the hotel have the 
day off, I go into a little Japanese noodle-shop. One of 
the helpers has raven-black hair hanging down to his 
shoulders. He's an attraction. A few guests arrive. 
One old woman enters in a fit of coughing and seats 
herself at the hibachi, smoking patiently till the bowl of 
rice is brought. 

On the street I meet two foreigners from Kobe. They 
are stopping at the big hotel and have come down to buy 
a pack of playing-cards. Along the street they roughly 
inveigle a Japanese to lead them. In no other country 
would strangers submit to such impudence. In the store 
the woman asks two yen fifty a pack. Because one of 
them had paid a yen a pack in Kobe, he flies into a rage, 
rudely snatches the cards from her hands, flings the 
money down before her — and back they rush to the hotel. 
I wonder if that is what has spoiled the Japanese. And 
I'm ashamed of my own impatience with them. The 
ill-temper of the westerner is a sad commentary on our 
civilization. 

Japanese, even when dnmk, are not as ill-dispositioned 
as are we. Were Japan to become a prohibition coun- 
try the world would lose one of the most interesting 
phases of pure impulse still left to it. Without sake there 
would be no flower-viewing in Japan, and without that 
all the cherry-trees and plum-trees would rot and die. 
Spring in Japan is the time of Omar. If ever a people 
flung its winter garment of repentance into the fire of 
spring, it was not the Persians; and indeed it is not to 



BEERU AND PAGEANTS 263 

be doubted — and I'm sure there will be many a Japanese 
to prove it — ^the whole spirit and philosophy of the Ru- 
baiyat came to Khayyam from Japan. Why, is there 
not the very word saki — The Eternal Saki — there to 
challenge contradiction? One of the songs of the 
samurai was stolen from Japan by Omar and incor- 
porated into his. Here it is : 

Onaji shinu nara Sakura no shite, yoiy yoi — 
Shiinda kahane ni, hana ga chiru, yoi, yoi, dekansho. 

Which has various interpretations, one being that the 
samurai was so happy with life that he asks that it be 
like the cherry-blossom — burst into bloom and fall to the 
ground, all in the space of a few days. 

In Maruyama Park in spring with its ntimerous cherry- 
trees — one over two hundred years old — the grounds are 
studded with open tea-houses. The usual mixture of 
unimpressive imagery and barter ! But this park is not 
like most city parks. It seems to be the shaggy tail of 
the mountain drooping toward the city, and the lofty 
structures of the temples merge into it. In summer it 
loses its freshness, and, being grassless, seems bare and 
desolate. But after a rain the little streams wake up, 
the tiny bridges put out their chests with self-importance 
— and all poor man can do is wander about, gazing. 
That is, the silly foreigner, sedate and proper. What 
does he know of life? All he knows is to sit down 
in an easy-chair and enjoy Omar. Not so the Japanese. 
He lives it. He gazes, but through a film of forgetful- 
ness. He becomes boisterous, but as a deer when the 
fire of spring wakes in its heart. 

It may not be a fair assumption, but it seems to me 
that the reason all this boisterous celebration of spring 
in Japan has become common and vulgar is because the 
Japanese are taking to beer and whiskey. Go where 
you will, Kirin beeru and Asahi beeru and Sakura beeru 



264 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

entice, with praise of themselves, the deluded Japanese. 
Yet the native never goes holidaying without his gallon 
sake bottles with him. He goes to the parks and he 
goes to his temple grounds — and all in the same mood 
and manner. 

Kyoto without its temples and shrines would, of 
course, not be Kyoto. They must be considered apart 
from the outpourings which become the streams of re- 
ligious emotion, and which are called matsuri (festivals). 
The temples and shrines are the spirit of these people in 
a state of inactivity. Yet, inactive only as the spirit of 
life, cramped and curtailed by the pressure of necessity. 
The flood of human emotion must gather before it can 
issue forth, and so month by month it accumulates for 
the great outpouring. Nowhere in the world does it 
do so as regularly as in Japan. In Europe and America 
pageantry is a thing of the past. Rehgion there has 
become so formal that it has lost its meaning. Going 
to church on Sunday is too frequent to become vital. 
It is a constant loss of emotional energy through leakage. 
It remained for the labor movement, for political im- 
pulse, to revive it. When the history of pageantry in 
America is written, it will begin with that of the Pater son 
(New Jersey) silk-strike sympathizers. In religious force 
there was nothing in America to compare with it. The 
labor parades lack unity, seem mere lip protests. But 
that pageant was the portrayal of emotional worth which 
suffering alone seems able to evoke in mankind. 

In Japan, because the religions are not so cramping 
in their hold upon the emotions of the people, pageantry 
has not yet passed away. It is still vital with the people, 
and the outpouiing might well be the envy of the West. 

But before we can consider this phase of Japanese life 
attention must be given to the temples, which are the 
vessels or the fountain-heads for the springs from which 
it flows. 



SYMBOLS AND SADNESS 265 

To attempt to do justice to all the shrmes and temples 
of Kyoto would require a book in itself and several 
years of patient study. All that I can plead in justifi- 
cation of my touching upon some of them is that I have 
merely entered and listened and watched, stood with 
reverence and adoration, and now give expression only 
to that which issued freely. A western mind, unbiased 
by beliefs and preconceived notions, ought to be a good 
filter through which pure truth could pass. I do not 
claim to be better than others. I do not claim to have 
discovered any special truth in Buddhism or Shintoism, 
but I have allowed them to influence me as light or 
shadow affects a film. If in the coloring I have since 
added to the print I am not credited with being an artist, 
well, at least I shall have made a good record. 

A massive two-storied gateway, disconnected but still 
part of the architectural scheme, stands at the head of a 
stone stairway with about a hundred-odd steps. There 
is no show of unusual sanctity about it. No steady flow 
inward or outward disturbs the spirit of the place. 
Those lingering seem to be part of it. So, too, the loi- 
terers about the great wide space of the temple grounds. 
People seem to be afraid of showing their reverence too 
much. In order to enjoy the peace of mind the temples 
afford the weary, they come as though for an altogether 
different purpose. They do not care to pray too openly, 
lest their fellow-men see too clearly into their troubled 
conscience. It is not secretiveness, but just a desire to 
solve their own emotional problems without being 
meddled with. We of the West proverbialize against 
wearing our emotions on our sleeves, yet what does too 
much prayer come to but that? And often, indeed, in 
the dark shadows of a shrine where barely a candle 
flickers in the face of man stands a man or woman or 
girl — and prays. 

Shoes must be removed before entenng or even touch- 



266 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ing the great wooden steps of the temple. An old 
woman has a pair of cloth covers for the foreigner if he 
chooses. But the touch of one's stocking-feet upon the 
steps sends a slight thrill through one. As I stand upon 
the mats of that vast chamber of sanctity, barred from 
trespass into the greater half of it, as I lose myself in 
confused gazing at the numerous gilt hangings, wooden 
and gilt columns, altars beset with brass furnishings — 
as I stand there trying to grasp some meaning and listen 
with pained sympathy to the regular, melancholy droning 
and drumming of the priest — my heart reveres, though 
my mind rebels. With what unwavering regularity 
sound the strokes on that wooden drum, and with what 
sorrowful concord he chants his meaningful hymn! 
Why so sad? 

Why has man come into the world for so much sorrov/ ? 
Why should he give himself to such lamentation, resign 
the grace, the freedom of motion and of action, and rivet 
himself to such rigid formalism? Man was not made to 
root, but to wander, to seek, to instil. It seems to me 
that any religion, however much accepted by humanity, 
is a denial of the principle of life and growth if it bids 
even one man to shut himself away from the cleansing 
process of motion, of wavering in thought and action, 
and confines him to such a state of immobility. The 
cramping of the body and the regular drumming were 
painful to look upon. How can a man feel his spirit 
free through such checking of his physical impulses? 

A family is let into the inclosure. A young priest 
comes forward and in the most profoimd and authorita- 
tive manner conducts the special service. It is impres- 
sive, even though the gongs and drums and bells tend 
to dispel not only evil thoughts, but the attentive and 
worshipful ones, too. Yet the sincerity of the worship- 
ers is undeniably evident. 

The religious practices of Japan cannot be said to be 



CLEAR WATER TEMPLE 267 

individualistic, for the people generally cluster in family 
groups. But the forms differ distinctly from Occidental 
worship in this very elasticity. In the West, going to 
church on Sundays or holidays is a mass movement. 
You feel the solidity of conscience, a binding of the 
whole into an impenetrable mass. That is its strength 
and its wealoiess, for one knows only too well what 
hypocrisy obtains often in the severest profession of 
religious faith. The devotee in the East, however, 
on the surface of things, is the loosest co-devotee of 
his neighbor to be found anywhere. You frequent 
temple after temple, and at all hours of the day you will 
find visitors. They come and go at will and there seems 
nothing to hold them together. They usually pray on 
the outside if it is at a Shinto shrine; or, even if upon 
the mats of the great Buddhist temples, there is a per- 
petual flow of worshipers, a movement of individuals 
(usually in groups) which seems to lack cohesion. That 
is the strength and weakness of Buddhism. But it 
seems that in this it is stronger than other religions, 
because more elastic. It is like the waters of the world, 
which may be parted, broken into, or undergo evapora- 
tion, still they will some day reunite. Perhaps it is 
even like quicksilver, which draws its separated particles 
together. 

Numerous are the temples which guard the precincts 
of classic Japan. Chion-in and Kyo-mizu-dera (Clear 
Water Temple) stand as the gateway to the rising sun; 
Nishi- and Higashi-Hongwanji face the road to com- 
mercial and modem Japan; Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji 
(Gold and Silver Pavilions) at the northeast and south- 
east comers in the direction of the continental sources of 
Japanese civilization. Yet numerous and elaborate as 
the temples are, one soon wearies of wandering from one 
to the other, feeling content to inhale the spirit of Kyoto 
which ever and ever exhales the glory of their artistry. 



268 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

One marvels at the artistic genius of this people. 
From what source did they draw such inspiration? 
Though all are more or less alike, still each temple is 
unique and has a distinction which sets it out from the 
rest. Chion-in is massive simpHcity; Kyo-mizu-dera is 
rich in a most virile use of mountain landscape; the 
Hongwanji temples are the acme of material luxury; 
while the Golden Pavilion, built as a temple of personal 
joy, is the consimimation of wealthy simplicity. To 
attempt to make special reference to all the lesser edi- 
fices would be to imitate a guide-book; but one can go 
from one to the other and still find something to admire, 
something to marvel at. The unassuming structure 
harboring the San-ju-san-gen-do, or the temple contain- 
ing 33,333 images of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, 
almost electrifies you with amazement. It reminds you 
of the theosophist who said that he often sets his mind on 
one point, thinks of that and that only without reasoning, 
without variation, until it sometimes seems to him he 
will go mad with concentration. Such is the wonder of 
this hall of images. All in gilt, all with a thousand 
hands, all with the same position and the same expression 
— one simply clutches at his reason when contemplating 
them. In the darkened chamber into which they re- 
cede, as it were, stars into the universe, they give the 
impression of infinity made finite as nothing else in art 
has ever done. And yet when examined closely one 
finds that individuality even here has found expression; 
that, whether flawed or faultless, each bears to the other 
a relative value — and that setting standards and con- 
ceptions of perfection or imperfection is the greatest of 
human errors. While in the rear sits a wood -carver 
deftly making new hands — soft, delicate, and human — 
for this undying goddess who seems to be wearing them 
out in trying to teach mankind to be merciful. 

Kyo-mizu-dera may be reached from two different 



DOING DELICIOUS PENANCE 269 

directions. Inasmuch as most of us must again return 
to the humdrum triviaHties of Hfe, no matter to what 
attractive spots we may venture, the ideal way is to 
leave the world by the path behind the Miyako Hotel 
and lose one's way along the numerous paths which in- 
sinuate themselves into the heart of the hills. If you 
lose your way completely, what matter? You are within 
a lovely retreat, and there will be none to disturb the 
solitary peace so easily won. But instinct will lead you 
in the right direction. Presently, quite unexpectedly, 
you are tracing the bed of a stream and overlooking a 
deep little valley beset with temples, pagodas, and tea- 
houses. It is Kyo-mizu-dera. As you stand at the 
head of a steep set of stone steps, you look down upon 
one of the prettiest and yet one of the most pathetic 
pictures to be seen in Japan. The temple proper stands 
with only one side of the foundation touching the moun- 
tain, the rest being supported by innumerable pillars. 
Immediately beneath you, at the foot of the steps, is a 
square, concrete pool with three pairs of stones for the 
feet of penitents. Here, before a shrine set into the 
ravine, men and women who think they have committed 
sins, but could not say what sin is, come to be absolved. 
How any one who thus confesses he does not know how 
to live properly can be expected to understand the nature 
of transgression is a problem which does not affect the 
picture. Here at all times of the year men and women 
will come after removing their clothes in a little shed 
and donning a white cotton kimono, and stand for stated 
lengths of time with the tiny little stream of water from 
above dropping down on their backs. In summer the 
gods are cheated of their allotment of suffering mortality, 
and a ban should be placed upon this form of absolution. 
It is tempting man to commit sin in order to be justified 
in refreshing one's body in streams such as this. 

But while the Japanese is or are doing penance, little 



270 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sparrows are quarreling for the possession of eminent 
domain on the shrine recess above them. The wooden 
god glares in frozen impotence, while all the sacred 
mirror can do is to mar the reflection out of all definition. 
The goddess at the right has placed her hands together 
in surprised prayer; the fierce prototype of power at her 
left has his right hand under his left shoulder, gripping 
a long spear, while his face is the image of scorn and 
indignation. And the birds quarrel and peck away at 
the bread set before these dyspeptic divines. They 
chirp and flit about, perch upon the floral and evergreen 
tributes, or on the candlesticks and glass candle-cases. 
And the penitent pilgrim mocks the whole procedure by 
enjoying overmuch the cool, refreshing shower, eager to 
prolong rather than to shorten the period of his '* ordeal.'* 

Kyo-mizu is the protector of a marvelous image of 
the thousand-handed goddess of Mercy, Kwannon, but 
out of mercy she is protected from idle gazing by being 
shown but once in thirty-three years. That is perhaps 
why she is so merciful. 

One loses one's antipathy toward the selfishness of 
wealth in the East and the West after a visit to the great 
Hongwanji temples. That so much of the best that man 
can do is placed at the disposal of come who will seems 
to me the most exalted form of democracy. Yet they 
are not museums. They have their purpose and fulfil 
it. Some day all that is worth while in life will be so 
arranged. The exclusiveness of private possession is the 
limitation of art and a restriction on inspiration. 

However much one of the West may not quite appre- 
ciate the details which enter into the making of these 
two vast storehouses of Japanese art, they leave one in 
studied reflection. One is relieved when the priest- 
attendant comes from behind the altar and quietly, one 
by one, draws the gilded paper doors across these virtues. 
Deep within the shadowed recesses the mystic symbols 




IN SUMMER THE GODS ARE CHEATED OF THEIR ALLOTMENT OF SUFFERING 

MORTALITY 




THE LIFE OF THE NOMAD PRIEST IS NOT MERE HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS, 
BUT STERN REALITY 



THEIR SECRET ESSENCE 271 

patiently await the coming of a great revealer. One by 
one they have sought to appease the hungry insatiety 
of man, and one by one have failed. Massed and mar- 
shaled they stand as the great conviction, only one sees 
how far from the mark both the spiritual and the 
scientific so very often hit. The scientist makes experi- 
ment after experiment, and then discovers exactly what 
he had not been looking for; and the artist and the 
individual devotee accumulate symbols and signs, and 
when you put them all together you have modeled a 
vast machine for the control of man — but not for his 
perfection. No system of religion ever really wants to 
make man perfect, for then it will have become obsolete. 
That is why religious wars occur, because, after having 
raised mankind to the level of its ideal, the organization 
refuses to step aside. The massive beauty of the temple 
seems to contradict its secret essence. That it has 
architectural, human significance in itself is obvious. 
But at every turn one is conscious of a telling presence 
which denies the outer forms. In churches, especially 
Catholic, the edifice does not simply symbolize the 
spiritual; it is actually meant to be that. The various 
artifices do not so much lead to the conceptions of 
divinity to be worshiped, but are in themselves con- 
sidered divine. It is the house of the Lord and every 
bit of furniture is by that much the Lord Himself. But 
with these temples, the apparent absence of physical 
unity annihilates that continuity of purpose which leads 
to the ever-recurring spark of Buddhist power. It has 
the essence of wind and fire in its make-up rather than 
bodily unity. 

The tremendous wooden pillars, which seem to have 
been loved into soft smoothness, is the surface rotundity, 
the hundreds of soft, oblong mats which fit so snugly into 
one another, the rich gilt and painted carvings held 

together with that impulsive outward pressing force 
18 



272 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

which is the law of universal matter — everything seems 
to spread and burst outward, rather than inward, as in 
western cathedrals. The oratory is oblong, but faces 
the altar which is on the longer side, not on the narrower, 
as in churches. The altar is the full length of the ora- 
tory. Thus the effect created is that of each individual 
facing something directly in front of him, rather than 
all facing a single point. The religious consequence 
must therefore be more individualistic ; each man to his 
own god or his own devil; each facing his own problems. 
Still Buddhism has not lost its unity. There are no 
more sects within the Buddhist fold than there are 
within the Christian circle, and it seems that the former 
tends toward greater inclusiveness and the latter toward 
exclusion. Buddhism has here in Japan alone com- 
pletely absorbed a people whose indigenous beliefs 
were directly and concretely more opposed to it than is 
Christianity — that is, Shintoism. And Shintoism is the 
essence of centralization, of unification round a single 
entity, a single personality. The great unifier of 
Japanese Buddhism was the saint Kobo Daishi. 

Of the other works of art which fill these gorgeous 
structures to their tiles little need here be said. The 
screens are exquisite. But all are the work of men. 
What of the women? In literary art, Kyoto's women 
stood at the head of all the Orient. The Fielding of 
Japan was a woman. But the heyday of feminism 
passed with the coming of Chinese Buddhism. Since, 
its suppression has been complete. Their greatest con- 
tribution was their long black tresses. On the outside 
of the Higashi-Hongwanji, along an open corridor, lead- 
ing from wing to wing, lies a coil of dark rope, like a giant 
beehive about four feet high. That was the gift of 
women to the construction of the temple — ^the hair of 
which the Japanese woman is so justly proud. 

Cut off from the clean section of Kyoto by the rough 



THIRSTS— REAL AND IMAGINARY 273 

intrusion of the train into modem Japan stands a temple 
which no one would think of visiting these days — ^it looks 
so shabby. On the 21st of each month a festival which 
is more like a fair takes place in honor of the great 
saint, Kobo Daishi. It is quite unusual in its setting, 
however. Tall pines grace the yard. Hundreds of 
people course in and out, buying things from the venders 
who have spread their wares on the ground. Many of 
them are asleep. The sun is sultry, casting over people 
and things a spell of Oriental drowsiness. Some, how- 
ever, are quite awake, attracting large crowds. A man 
sells a new concoction which he elaborately details with 
a torrent of explanation. A pan is full of ice-shavings. 
He pours a thin stream of condensed milk slowly. over it, 
then a little flavoring, syrup, eggs, and two or three other 
liquids — and, lo and behold! a drink fit for monarch or 
Tenno. The glassfuls pass out and the coins which 
come in litter the table. A big, fat man under an um- 
brella buys a drink — two, three — served him over the 
heads of a dozen in front of him, (he must be a narikin). 
One smiles, hesitates, but also takes a glass; a girl, fat 
and short, with perspiration like a rash upon her sore, 
overheated face, looks on sadly. What wouldn't she give 
for a glassful! Old women, faint with heat, stand be- 
neath their umbrellas. At another stand, a trick-maker 
with a blind eye and dislocated jaw, a many-colored 
divided skirt, passes up and down, displaying his skill. 
At another place, under the square cloth cover, open on 
one side, a woman calls out for the interested to listen. 
For two sen, which you pay on leaving, not on entering, 
you see a man with arms and legs atrophied, or shriveled, 
by infantile paralysis, drawing little meaningless pictures 
with a fude (brush) manipulated with his head and 
mouth. And thirty little children stand and stare! 
All round the temple grounds the most discarded, useless 
things are on display — tabi (stocking-shoes) stitched and 



274 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

darned after having been thrown away, He for sale. 
When you know that a new pair would cost but twenty 
sen, the poverty of the country is told at a glance. And 
within the temples priests are praying, musicians 
playing the fifes (like Scotch bagpipes) ; people sit about 
indifferently; others pray at the entrance and throw in 
their coppers. And all this in a temple erected by or 
under the spiritual or physical supervision of Kobo 
Daishi. How childish he would feel were he to visit the 
place to-day ! 

Nor would he be alone in this. At the opposite end 
of Kyoto, also in isolation, stands another temple known 
in the world as the Golden Pavilion. This section is 
perhaps the loveliest in and about Kyoto, wooded pro- 
fusely, with a creek running along a sunken ravine set 
with a forest of bamboos. Kinkakuji itself has a most 
ideal situation against a little hill. Its garden is as fine 
a piece of artistic arrangement of vast possibilities in 
miniature as could be imagined, and the pavilion on the 
shore of the lake is ideally placed. Nothing is out of 
proportion. Stones, trees, islands, a lake — all are small 
and pretty, yet give in perspective an impression of large- 
ness in reality. One partly shuts one's eyes and sees 
immediately a real lake with islands, instead of a small 
pond. And the pavilion stands on the shore, in a sense 
the only thing somewhat out of proportion. For it 
becomes a monstrous building when seen at a distance, 
though on the spot it is fitted to its environment. 

Thought of in its historical setting, it again looms up 
as a monstrous project. There is so much of this sort 
of thing in Japan. Everywhere else art and archi- 
tecture are the materialization of mass ambition. A 
cathedral is the ideal of an age, of generations; and so, 
too, are the temples of Japan. But these private enter- 
prises, these self -raised mausoleums, teach so much of 
the egoism of individuals one cannot fully enjoy their 



PAYING TRIBUTE TO KOREA 175 

intrinsic value. Clever and powerful as was the shogun 
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, his short-sightedness in this 
elaborate display of power portrays his weakness. And 
every Japanese will agree and join in anything of con- 
demnation I might say of him, for he is the one man in 
the country who ever paid tribute to a foreign state. 
It was he who reversed the Nipponese attitude toward 
Korea and for ever disgraced himself with his country- 
men. And this fact, this imperialistic egoism, is recog- 
nized in the fact that his golden pavilion, which he built 
for his personal pleasure and which he plastered with 
gold-leaf, has been turned over to the Zen sect as a 
temple. In this building, now five hundred years old, 
he bargained with art, as in politics he bargained with a 
foreign nation. It is this essential weakness which 
creeps into the actions of all men who obtain power, the 
full usefulness of which they do not understand or 
which the jealousy of others does not permit them to 
make full use of. 

To-day the Golden Pavilion is a retreat from the very 
influences which made for its creation. And the way 
thither leads through poverty, scattered industry, the 
clatter of shuttles from the latticed chambers of the 
silk-weavers — and an ungilded humanity which lives 
on these small glories of power wrested from its very 
self. 

"Across the way," at the northern comer of Kyoto, 
stands the Ginkakuji, or the Silver Pavilion, a modest 
imitation of the same thing. Between is the Mikado's 
former palace — a model of simplicity and austere reserve. 
Much as our friends, the Japanese, would have us believe 
that this imperial modesty was voluntary, history sadly 
disproves it. For these very pavilions were the upper 
and the nether millstones between which the poor, dis- 
traught Emperor was crushed into submission to the will 
of the usurper-general. For the peace and happiness of 



276 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Japan it is to be hoped that this stupid craving after 
military power is near an end. 

Immediately behind this silver and gold decadence 
stands Hiei-san, as rich, as lofty, as green as in the days 
of this hectic past. Within his altitudinous precincts 
are but a few ghostlike remnants of the glory it once 
possessed. Buddhist priests, teaching mankind, forgot 
to practise, and, imderstanding life, forgot to live it 
according to that understanding. They sought to step 
where Ashikagas feared to tread and found themselves 
before Nobunaga, the exterminator. Periodically they 
swooped down upon Kyoto, leaving havoc and misery 
behind them. And Nobunaga taught the Buddhists to 
know their place, and they haven't forgiven him yet. 
I wonder what secret prayers the bonzes even this day 
utter for the tortiu*e of his soul. But to-day Hiei-san 
is quiet. The clash of arms can be heard no more; 
barely a sound of even Buddhist resignation rises. So 
tame has the world become that even foreign mission- 
aries have been making the peak their camping-ground 
these forty years. 

In the eyes of the unconverted natives how crude, 
cold, and unbeautiful must seem the Christian churches 
— ^they who have never seen a great cathedral. Yet 
with mere shacks the missionaries think to supplant 
Buddhism. This struck me so forcefully when on 
Hiei-san. For forty years missionaries have been camp- 
ing on this mountain regularly during the summer 
months, yet not a permanent structure with even the 
vaguest suggestion of beauty is to be found there. 
Just wooden floors and wooden roofs, single boards 
raised to protect tents and tent-flaps. Everything in 
the cheapest, most dilapidated condition. How it 
must make the pilgrims who come to visit the old 
temples scoff. How offensive it must be in the eyes of 
the form-loving Japanese. All they have is a little 



LAKE BIWA 277 

''meeting-house'* which looks worse than an open coun- 
try moving-picture stable, having the virtue neither of 
complete openness nor of inclosure. 

In contrast to this ungainliness is the beauty in age 
of the numerous temples which stud the mountain 
fastnesses. Broad stone steps, though adding nothing 
to the beauty of the place, are to the region what genera- 
tions are to tradition. 

Crossing the mountain and descending, on the Lake 
Biwa side, through thickly wooded slopes of pines and 
cryptomerias and the most self-effacing bamboo, we 
come to where Biwa (Omi-ko) lies stretching northward. 
It is completely surrounded by irregular mountains. 
It is one of those places which was bom great and did 
not have greatness thrust upon it. It is the Lake 
George of Japan, but infinitely more delicate, even as 
the former is infinitely more vigorous and verdant. It 
is somewhere between Lake Como and George, only the 
muddy marshes along the northwest shore recall one to 
the memory of its alleged origin. Once Fuji erupted, 
and Omi was bom. This is a negative sort of an expla- 
nation and ill becomes the beauty of the water. He 
who would gaze long enough across Lake Biwa would, 
I am sure, be inspired with more purposeful romancing. 
And to me, one night, resting on its shore at the village 
of Otsu, it became the prospect of a greater assurance. 
Deep within the darkness which lay above it shone the 
lights of swerving sampans. My days along the edge 
of Lake George came back to me with saddening realism. 
But that night a hope himg between life and death. 
And Omi-ko said, ''Life." 

Here at Otsu is one of the loveliest temples in all 
Japan — Mii-dera. It has much of the real quality of 
Nikko without the latter's lavish tidiness, and the charm 
of Ohara without its neglect. Cryptomerias and maples 
grove the temple grounds and are walled in by broad 



278 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

avenues of moss-covered stones, and bridged with just 
such a curved stone bridge as is universally associated 
with Japan. One is quite bewildered by the profusion 
of vistas and retreats which here go a-begging. Yet 
what peace and tranquillity! It is somewhat of a *'Jean 
Christophe" of a temple: not too far away from life, 
yet not disturbed by its changing fruitlessness. 

Here at Mii-dera, far away at a somewhat inacces- 
sible distance, is the head priest's private residence. 
Beside it is a small graveyard. And here lie the remains 
of Ernest Fenollosa, the American patron of Japan- 
ese art. The tombstone is of a simple Buddhist type, 
inscribed in Chinese characters with the names of four 
American friends, one of whom is Arthur Wesley Dow, 
the American painter. The tomb is like that over 
Hideyoshi's grave — the cube (earth) under the sphere 
(water) over which is the pagoda-roofed symbol for fire, 
a spheroid for air, topped by another with a point to 
it for ether. Here at Homyo-in the priest received 
me, pleased to have a foreigner witness the respect and 
reverence with which Fenollosa is regarded. Every 
autumn when the maple-leaves have reached their 
greatest splendor, the priest holds a service at his grave. 
Reiyen Naobayashi, the old priest, promised to let me 
know what day would that fall be chosen. He did, 
but to the effect that that year (191 8) no service would 
be held, on account of the influenza epidemic then raging. 
The head priest is a quiet, worldly sort of person, 
who shuts his eyes as though at prayer every time he 
speaks to you. But he was not so Buddhified that he 
did not show some irritation when a boy did not bring 
and handle the painted karakami as quickly as he wanted 
him to. The temple possesses some excellent works of 
art, among them being paintings of the great Japanese 
woman novelist, Murasaki Shikibu. 

A few miles away from Otsu in the other direction, 



ONE OF EIGHT BEAUTIES 279 

yet still on the shores of Lake Biwa, stands Ishiyama- 
dera, a very ancient temple to which this selfsame 
Murasaki Shikibu is said to have retired for a fortnight 
during which she wrote the Genji Monogatori, one of 
the greatest Japanese classics. 

But Ishiyama has a glory all its own. Hidden at the 
mouth of the Setagawa, which flows out of Lake Biwa, 
it is a secret to be discovered only in the blaze of autumn. 
Were there not "Eight Beauties of Omi" in and about 
Lake Biwa, but Ishiyama alone, fame could not have 
found a place more worthy. I have not seen it by moon- 
light, as devotees urge. It was enough to see it at sun- 
set in autumn, swathed in delicate tints. One loses the 
sense of either the passing or coming of the year. The 
short avenue which you approach leads to a simple old 
temple-gate, arched with maple-trees whose tender leaves 
were dipped in tender hues. One is shy of words. A 
wrong word might shake these floating leaves. The 
very use of the world "cold" might add that little chill 
which will ripen the leaves for their graves. I mistrust 
the word "wind," lest that disturbing sound drive them 
"like ghosts before an enchanter fleeing." 

Black rocks stand in patient usefulness — few and 
clannish. Here there are three structures — a temple on 
a small ledge to the left, a bell-tower on the ledge to the 
right specked with sunset-amber and maple shadows, 
and a third in the portion rising toward the summit. 
That is the main temple, sealed, and concealing "the 
real object of worship — a small image six inches in 
height." But one would hardly know that from the 
way in which the sunlight dances on the outer walls. 
This solar familiarity banishes all thought of worship of 
the superstition within, but leaves you worshiping none 
the less, leaves you, a small image not six feet yourself, 
insignificant in the presence of such natural caprice. And 
you then look up into an incomparable bower of maple. 



28o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

One feels the hand of a woman in all this. For while 
Hideyoshi was making the Empire of Japan with 
firmness, there was one beside him dreaming. And 
when she became his widow and was released from 
being a delicacy against a drastic background, she, 
Yodogimi, took to making on her own account. And she 
remade Ishiyama. 

Arashiyama is at the opposite comer of the district. 
In spring and autumn it is the attraction of Japan — its 
maple-leaves and cherry-blossoms alternating and vying 
with each other in the crowds they draw. The rapids of 
the Hozugawa, but a few miles up so noisy with self- 
importance and so treacherous, are at Arashiyama placid 
and exhausted, and follow the course laid out for them 
as though it didn't matter any more. 

The humanity which pretends to revel in these beau- 
ties is just the same. Without organization, without 
enforced unity, man makes a mess of things. In freedom 
he does not seem to know how to be humanity. I have 
yet to see a picnic or an outing in which there is any 
artistic impulse. This is true of Japan no less than of 
any other country. The Japanese have no stronger 
racial genius than have we. Left to themselves their 
"art" takes the form of wild shrieking, haphazard 
dancing, and good-natured drunkenness. This is in- 
teresting, but only as the rapids are — for a moment. 
When Japanese dance they become very primitive and 
remind one of the Maories. But they know no more 
what it is to be really free and unrestrained, have no 
greater appreciation of wild nature, than any of us. 
To come out into the open to them as to us is merely to 
shout, to scrap, to eat, and to get dnmk. So we will 
return to Kyoto and see what the more constrained, 
more formed and organized of its people think and do. 




XVII 

GION MATSURI PAGEANT 

HE complaint of the rationalist against the 
disappearance of the old forms of life is 
not an undervaluation of the ever-arising 
new. He who lives at the transition 
stage watches with regret the gradual 
weakening of the old and cannot as yet see the slowly 
accumulating wonder of the new. That is why one 
hears so much about the fast-disappearing Old Japan. 
Those, however, who have given sympathetic attention 
to the real Japan may, no matter how much they dis- 
parage the new, have unlimited faith in its renaissance. 
To see how quickly the Old Japan is degenerating one 
must attend one of the great festivals. None is more 
impressive than that of the largest Shinto shrine in 
Kyoto known as the Gion Matsuri. It begins on the 
17th of July and ends on the 24th. Materially, nothing 
shows how incompatible the past and present are, for 
in order to allow the great hoko and yama (ponderous 
chariots) to pass through the street the electric trolley 
wires must be cut. Twenty or forty men pull the mas- 
sive carts by long two-inch ropes. The wheels are 
seven feet in diameter, with bodies fully ten feet high; 
hoko or halberds are gracefully mounted on the temple- 
shaped roofs. The bodies of these cars are hung with 
embroideries and tapestries some of them of the most 
artistic and exquisite workmanship. On others, how- 



282 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ever, cheap foreign rugs have taken the place of native 
hangings. The old and the new, the false and the 
true, overlap in this day of uncertain inclinations. 

Within the cars and on the driver seats are numbers of 
men and boys, some chanting and ringing harsh bells. 
The men in the front dance fantastic fan-dances. 

There are twenty-two yama listed, and five hoko, but 
in these days the entire number is not drawn. The 
procession lasts three hours and takes a special route 
across the city. It is said to have originated back in 
876 when a great plague swept over Kyoto, and priests 
sought to propitiate the gods by this means. 

In the midst of the rush for modernism which has 
swept over Japan this persistence of an ancient form is 
admirable. Men know that the doctor expels plague 
better than these symbols; men see the introduction 
of new hangings, and watch paid coolies pulling these 
cars instead of zealous worshipers. The crowds gather 
by the thousands. Nothing in their behavior would 
indicate that a procession or a fire-drill had been ar- 
ranged. Emotionally, things fall flat, but pictorially 
they are superb. 

Though the 17th is the more spectacular day of the 
festival, it is not the most impressive. The people are 
merely spectators. On the eve of the festival all Kyoto 
is in the process of preparation. Great lanterns are 
hung in front of each house. The front room, generally 
the store, is thrown wide open and every possible vestige 
of trade is removed, except where poverty obtains. In 
place of trinkets, trash, and necessaries, which always 
litter the business world, screens of the finest quality and 
art are placed along the walls. It was certainly one of 
the most wonderful experiences in my life. Upon the 
streets strolled these clean Japanese in their summer 
kimonos, the essence of good cheer and satisfaction. 

The social spirit is delightful. Everybody's home is 



ART TRIUMPHANT 283 

opened to all who care to look. Phonographs screech 
their canned music out into the dull-lighted night, men 
squat before their heavy Go (checkers) blocks, tables, 
and chess — a more sober, happy spirit of ease and con- 
tent not to be found anywhere. As a touch of modem- 
ism, manufactured rugs lay over the soft straw-stuifed 
mats. At one place half a dozen little girls from six to 
eight years of age romped about. Their laughter and 
ease were infectious. They played a game of hide-and- 
seek, appearing and disappearing within the folds of the 
screens. Their gorgeously colored kimonos accentu- 
ated their physical differences from foreign children, 
helping to make them appear more fairy than real. A 
crowd of us stood watching them, but they were utterly 
unconscious of us. All the while at least twenty men 
sat upon the mats, playing such games as with us 
demand a room absolutely silent. Yet they were not 
at all disturbed by the childish laughter. Women, 
however, were not seen much, even on such an occasion 
retreating from the public gaze. 

Wandering along one street, I took note of the sub- 
jects painted on the screens, to see what interests these 
people most. One screen represented the sixteen dis- 
ciples of Buddha, each obtaining immortality by some 
special use of a living creature — bird, ox, turtle, horse, 
dragon, etc. One disciple was astride a frog, another, a 
flying bull, a third, a giraffe, tiger, heron, sheep, book, 
dove — in order. There were three screens illustrating 
fighting samurai, one each of an architectural nature, 
horse-racing, the No, children; two screens of wise men; 
two comic, cubistic; two religious; five of courtiers in 
procession; nine plain gold screens; twenty of fish and 
lions and other animals; and thirty-five of nature 
(clouds, plant life, etc.). It will thus be seen that 
nature and animals appeal to the Japanese most. I 
noticed that wherever a screen was painted after the 



284 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

modem style in oils the expressions on the faces of sub- 
jects, if women, were invariably sad, dissatisfied, longing 
— as our women are always represented. This is cer- 
tainly more foreign to the Japanese woman's face than 
is even the artist's technique, and shows the tendency 
to be imitative. 

At certain comers or stations stood the sacred cars, 
all overhung with Japanese lanterns. Planks had been 
thrown across from the tops of the cars to the houses in 
which the treasures were temporarily stored. 

The screens are heirlooms and are known to belong to 
the families displaying them. Should one fail to exhibit 
any of them it would indicate stress of circumstances, 
loss of wealth and prestige. The clan spirit is so strong 
that if one man is in need in one district, the rest will 
come to his assistance, and it is next to impossible for 
an outsider, even at this late date, to purchase property 
in a new district. Consequently Kyoto is very much 
scattered. Take Nishimura's silk-store — the largest in 
the city. It is on a little side-street in anything but a 
favorable business block. But the family has lived 
there for generations; so they cannot or do not care to 
go elsewhere. And foreigners are told to go there to 
witness the procession of the 24th, for in front of this 
store the palanquin-bearers go through special cere- 
monies. Each district has its car and districts vie 
with each other in elaborateness. 

The replacing of the sacred palanquins in their shrines 
on the night of the 24th is a charming sight, full of 
voluptuous spirit as well as esoteric meaning. Forty or 
fifty youths prance backward and forward, raising the 
ponderous gilt-and-lacquer car high over their heads and 
lowering it to their shoulders, calling aloud, **Ya so, 
yo so, ya so," etc., in most primitive fashion. They 
sway and swing the burden (which is indeed heavy) and 
act as though the spirit were willing, but the body reluc- 



4 



SACRED CARS 285 

tant to advance, and when they reacn the bridge they 
swing round and go back again. 

The effect is hypnotic. One sways with them as 
though actually carrying their burden. It is like being 
on a rough sea, only what one is forced to give up here 
is his unbalanced self-restraint. Yet the mass of 
Japanese stands by, staring — unaffected outsiders. 

The climax in Japanese art is reached in these great 
festivals. They seem to be the fountain-head of Ori- 
ental artistic impulse. From the clear, restrained 
impulsiveness which makes Japanese brush-works so 
vigorous and so wonderful to the temples which contain 
them is a gradual ascent which finally culminates in 
these popular pageants. 




XVIII 

MEDIEVAL JAPAN — TOKYO 

CHOSE to head this chapter ''Medieval 
Japan" because Tokyo (or Yedo, as it was 
called) came into existence with the dropping 
of the curtain over Japan's world destiny. 
It was the Taiko Hideyoshi who suggested the 
place as a fit one for his right-hand general, leyasu, and 
all leyasu could do was to accept it. And in a trice, 
over three hundred years ago, out of a desolate waste 
he made a city. 

Tokyo is in such a formative state as yet as to appear 
scattered. You have to travel long distances in small, 
dirty, crowded, creeping tramcars, cars so small that a 
passenger standing behind a motorman prevents him 
from using the antiquated hand-brake discarded in 
New York ten years ago. But her railroad station is 
modern in every way, adjoins an excellent hotel, and 
seems ultra- American in its details. 

Kobe is impossible on a rainy day, but it is not the 
peer of Tokyo in that respect. I had come to Tokyo 
specially to see the cherry-blossoms, but Miss Cherry 
Blossom doesn't show herself to advantage when it rains. 
Her stems are not the most attractive part of her 
anatomy, nor do they look well bespattered with mud. 
She does not, on that account, disdain to show them. 
Shades of Anthony Comstock! If he wants to see 
maidenly, manly, matronly, and muddy legs bare up to 
the knees, let him visit Tokyo on a rainy holiday. Legs 




THE PAST AND PRESENT ARE INCOMPATIBLE: NOW, WHEN THESE PLAGUE- 
EXPULSION CHARIOTS PASS, THE TROLLEY WIRES MUST BE CUT 




FORTY MEN PULL THESE MASSIVE CARTS BY TWO-INCH ROPES ONE HUNDRED 
AND FIFTY FEET LONG 




ESCORTS, PULLERS, DRIVERS, CHANTING AND RINGING HARSH BELLS, DANCE 
FANTASTIC FAN-DANCES 



LEGS 287 

of all kinds, some pretty solid and some pretty wobbly, 
but nevertheless legs, human legs, and no Boston author- 
ities to prohibit their immodest procession and promis- 
cuous mingling in public. If I am unable to find my 
way over these notes on Tokyo it will be that I couldn't 
see the population for its legs. Not that they attracted 
me so much, for they are not over-shapely, but they were 
in the way. I had to move along most cautiously, de- 
termined to carry away as little of the slush as 
possible, and there were all these legs not only blocking 
the way, but leaving no footprints, either — only marks 
like the perforations in a roll of music for a piano- 
player. 

What an unsanitary state of affairs ! With a moat and 
walls round an imperial palace large enough and ex- 
tensive enough to have paved half of the city, I saw 
not a paved street in the capital. 

The 15 th of April is a holiday for the celebration of the 
cherry-blossoms. Nay, welcoming and bidding farewell 
at the same time. Yesterday they were still blazing 
forth ; to-morrow, nay, even now, they are falling to the 
ground. Ten days later they will have passed away 
with the thousands of others celebrated through the 
centuries. 

It was a dull day, but the sun, though dazed, found 
joyous reflection on the light -pink blossoms. The 
ground was already strewn with them. It strained my 
eyes. It seemed like an artificial snow scene, a winter 
from which all the sting of cold had been removed. 

And how do the Japanese celebrate? In undefined 
desire. Crowds, but not just plain crowds. Most of 
them in crazy costumes and with funny faces. Some 
went so far in their enthusiasm as to clip designs in their 
hair — stars, rhomboids, squares, standing out black 
against a bare scalp. Procession after procession of 
large, capacious boats pushed by sendo with long bamboo 

19 



288 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

poles were littered with noisy, gluttonous human beings. 
Some of them, spurred on by the sake, went into calis- 
thenic paroxysms simulating savage dances. One was 
prostrate on his back. One old man became immen- 
tionably vulgar before his women companions. And 
thousands of others looked on from the shore and the 
bridges. Noise of drums, singing in hoarse, discordant 
songs, confusion of color, dirty in appearance — that is 
what celebrating in Japan comes to when it isn't cere- 
monialized. I dare say it is good for man to relieve 
himself if this sort of thing is what is in him. 

In contrast stood the imperial palace, presenting a 
scene as wonderfully opposite to that as anything this 
world can possibly afford. It had begun to rain. A 
hundred-and-fifty-foot moat separates the Emperor's 
world from ours ; a w^all of stone about thirty feet thick 
and twenty high above it barricades him against us. 
His world is all fixed and certain; ours, what we can 
make of it. To us who have not, the advantages from 
the achievement in one lifetime of such power and 
exclusion are enlarged to unimaginable proportions; 
to him, never having known other or lesser degrees, his 
lot may seem poor indeed. I wonder whom he envies 
now in the year 191 9, with the Czar and the Kaiser to 
reflect upon. 

There are degrees of difference. When I approached 
the immobile figure of the policeman at the crossroads, 
caped and hooded from the wind and rain, and looked 
into his deep, sullen, suspicious eyes, I felt myself 
a king in freedom and wondered whether that lonely 
statue-like slave didn't envy me as much as he envied 
his Tenno. 

The inclined road reaches the ramparts of another 
moat which runs between two similarly constructed 
stone walls, the inner one of which harbors the imperial 
palace. Two simple bridges span it. Guards stand in 



M 



THE RICE RIOTS 289 

rigid attention. I stepped upon the stone wall and 
rested on the iron railing, but was instantly ordered off 
by a guard. My profane hands were not even to touch 
the imperial railing. What about the ground beneath 
my feet? Then there was nothing to do but to gaze 
across the yawning moat. 

Strange thoughts came to me. Love of the peace, the 
quiet, and the beauty of the place beyond made me 
approve of it. A feeling of actual foreignness came into 
me such as had never disturbed me before — ^a foreignness 
which is not natural but forced, which even the wonder- 
ing subjects, gazing wide-eyed at their Tenno's dwelling- 
place, must experience. And they were his. 

Great silence brooded over all. I hoped some for- 
mality would swing wide those broad gates and let 
forth the Emperor on some affair of state. Nothing but 
some law or order could have accomplished so great a 
thing. Emperors and peers do not act haphazardly any 
more than do volcanoes. Geysers may be soaped into 
action, but not volcanoes and emperors. But no life 
showed itself from within. Even the trees maintained 
a marked decorum and stateliness in pose. 

But the serenity was not to endure unbroken. The 
next year a ripple in the moats was felt and a tremor 
shook the palace. 

We were at dinner at the Imperial Hotel when a 
gentleman came past and told us we were missing the 
excitement outside. It was the 14th of August, 1918, 
and the rice riots, which swept over the coimtry a few 
days previously, had set in a second time — or had not 
been suppressed. In front of the hotel hundreds of 
sullen, voiceless hangers-on had gathered. The hotel 
employees warned us not to go out, but we made our 
v/ay to the gate. I ventured into the crowds alone, and 
was scrutinized sullenly, though nothing happened. 
Under the arch of the railway bridge many other Jap- 



290 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

anese hung about, while before the bridge, leading to 
the Ginza, stood a cordon of white-suited policemen. 
They would not let me pass, though their attitude was 
most friendly, and they answ^ered my questions politely 
and sympathetically. A little later a number of win- 
dows near the hotel were smashed. The rioters had 
moved out of this district, the poHce permitted us to go 
through, and we wandered along the darkened Ginza — 
all wooden shutters having been put on. 

We turned in the direction of Hibiya Park. Just as 
we arrived at the comer, a dozen motor-cars full of 
policemen in their white uniforms tore past us at great 
speed. We made our way into the park and seated our- 
selves on a knoll above the lake, with the imperial palace 
beyond. From this place we could also see over into 
the street. Crowds were rushing hither and thither, 
shouting — and there were the hangers-on, silent and 
sullen. Suddenly the sound of the bugle came from 
the direction of the palace, followed by the tread of 
soldiers; then a lull. The cries of the crowd rose again 
in an inconsequential protest, and then all was quiet. 
We attempted to return to the hotel, which stands right 
in line with the park entrance. The policemen per- 
mitted us to go, but stopped the Japanese. They made 
one exception — doubtless a detective, for he was tall, 
slightly foreign in manner, and seemed to hang on our 
trail. On several occasions I noticed we were being 
watched. When we came up to where the soldiers stood 
they refused to let us pass, notwithstanding that I 
explained that we were going to the Imperial Hotel, half 
a block away. We had to turn and pass for three blocks 
through the surging multitude. 

It was an impressive scene. The Japanese policemen 
were excited, but each carried the tamest of objects 
imaginable — a paper lantern. There was nothing tame 
about the atmosphere, however. It was electric enough 



THREE NYMPHS ±gt 

and had none of the ordinary aspects of a food riot. It 
was tinged with political significance, which will be 
touched upon in a succeeding chapter. 

Tokyo did not suffer so severely from the riots as did 
Kobe, Kyoto, and Nagoya. Tokyo, with all its fame, 
is another of the mistakes of medieval Japan. The time 
may yet come — though I have never heard it even 
hinted at and the railroads make it seem improbable — 
for Kyoto to come into its own again. Kyoto lies 
nearer the important center of industrial Japan. Tokyo 
will eventually be off the "macadamized roads" of the 
coming Japan. 

The last time I was in Toky^o it was also raining. 
Going to one foreign hotel near the Ueno Station adver- 
tised in the guide-book, I found it closed, and, the 
prospect of the next being no more assuring, I accepted 
the advice of the rickshaw-man and had myself pulled 
to the Yamashiro-ya Hotel. It faces the Ueno Station, 
a foreign brick three-story building recently erected. 
The clerk told me there was no room, but when I assured 
him I would put up with a Japanese room, he assented. 
Immediately a girl came along and took my suitcases. 
When I took them away from her she said in Japan- 
ese, *'Seiyojin taihen shinsetsu'^ (''Foreigners are very 
kind-hearted"). Which shows that, though Japanese 
women put up with the imposition of their selfish males, 
they do so not without being conscious of the better 
treatment accorded their western sisters. 

I was taken to the top story and given a comer room, 
neat, costly-looking, modem, but Japanese in every 
detail. And here it struck me that this is the secret of 
all westernization of the Orient. Though it was an 
extremely up-to-date building, still in all essentials it 
was as inconvenient as one in the olden days. When I 
asked for a bath I was led down the three sets of stairs 
to the cellar where were the communal bath and lava- 



292 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

tories. Imagine having to go three stories to wash 
yourself and washing in common with all the other 
strangers in the hotel. It struck me that socially the 
Japanese hotel is a negative affair. Washing, gargling, 
and clearing of throats are done in common, but eating 
and every other function by us regarded as social is done 
in private. Of course, eating should not be a social 
affair, either, for that matter, but the contrast is inter- 
esting. When I was ushered into the bath by the 
maid she called aloud into the room with the pool that 
a guest had come, and forthwith a tiny little woman 
came out with a towel in her hand — and not a stitch of 
clothes about her. Nudity has its attractions when 
slightly concealed, but when no secrecy obtains it has 
the opposite effect. She was small, she was brown. 
But she hadn't even a blush on her face. Why should 
she? None of the people she cares anything about con- 
siders it wrong! I made my way into the bath. Two 
men were there, but left shortly. I wasn't alone five 
minutes when in came a dainty damsel with as much on 
her as I myself had. She was soon followed by another, 
and the two seemed to support each other in virtue. 
They entered the pool and huddled in a comer. An 
old man entered and also stepped right into the water. 
The male attendant chatted with the ladies, and never 
a sign of confusion or of things amiss disturbed the 
atmosphere. It was the first experience of the kind I 
had had in all my stay in Japan. One is here inclined 
to agree with the Japanese that they don't need western 
moral restrictions because they are naturally moral, 
though this is not an absolute truth. And the story is 
told by those whose veracity is not to be doubted that 
when first the edict went forth that no one was to go 
into the sea at the beach without a bathing-suit on, all 
obeyed the order, but all took off their suits on the sand 
after they came out of the water. 



NIKKO THE INCOMPARABLE 293 

Nikko is the embodiment in stone of the will to live. 
All the other Oriental splendors are of life unconcerned 
about death. Built of wood, they not only succumb to 
decay, but to the ravages of fire. At Nikko, besides the 
tall cryptomerias, the architectural conceptions are 
certainly more lavish than any to be found in Japan. 

But that which is Nikko in more definite terms of 
human aspiration is the tomb of leyasu. In no mau- 
soleum is there so much conscious striving to approx- 
imate immortality in the use of stone as at this tomb. 
Almost the first thought which came to me as I stepped 
upon one of these slabs leading up the hill was of leyasu 's 
vandalism at the shrine of Hideyoshi. It hurts one's 
sense of manliness and pride to think that so big a man 
as leyasft was unable to tolerate an ascendancy he had 
been unable to excel. It was without doubt this feeling 
that Hideyoshi, a peasant's son, had outreached his own 
inherited prestige — ^which drove leyasu to such acts of 
ruthless destruction. It bears the stamp of conviction, 
of power, of confidence, but the desire to outstrip 
another lurks in every comer of this wonderful tomb. 

Buddhist architecture, as stated elsewhere, seems 
scattered. If one could only see the entirety thrown 
together in some single work which could hold you for 
the time in its grip as does a cathedral. But come to a 
Buddhist or Shinto place of holiness and you are pur- 
sued with the fear that you have missed the best of it 
by not seeing the next temple. Nikko, however, 
though things are still somewhat scattered, is fortunate 
enough to possess a unity, a binding force, a consummate 
splendor. 

Certainly no place in Japan is so rich in hidden streams, 
covering forests, and rugged mountain as is Nikko. 
You realize the futility of ever being able to enjoy it to 
the full, yet feel the delicious sense of growth in contact, 
the restful retirement. Of course, it is a question as to 



294 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

whether you will see the pagan or the human elements 
within or behind it. 

The writer is in the position of the silk embroiderer, 
who worked out a picture of Nikko for foreign consump- 
tion. Upon the sheet six feet by five will be seen the 
gilded gateway to the temple, the pagoda, the sacred 
bridge, the streams, and all that vast amassing of ma- 
terials, all out of perspective and out of placing. But 
the "artist" felt that unless he put them all in the 
purchaser might forget one of the holy of holies. 

Elaborate as these temples are (having cost $10,000,000 
at a time when a dollar was really three) one leaves with 
a feeling of surfeit. They seem overdone. Splendid 
they are beyond compare; but they lack softness and 
simplicity. Were it not for the giant cryptomerias the 
whole would be garish and unpleasant. True, it is a 
fit monument to the kind of peace great leyasu affected. 
None of us can criticize, for at that time it was the only 
kind of peace possible. 

But the tomb ? That is different. It is reached by a 
steep set of steps lined with magnificent cryptomerias. 
One ascends slowly, listening to the hush which hangs 
within the shadows. The way is moss-covered ; the hill 
steep; the peak set with the gold-bronze tomb. There is 
that about tombs which is resentful of attention. One 
wishes that the entire place were sanctified by that 
greatest of tributes — ^neglect. To keep things fresh and 
gilded as though bom that day is to rob a tomb of that 
which it is meant to indicate — ^its age. And leyasu *s 
tomb looks as though it had been built yesterday. One 
loses that historical perspective which gives to death 
its place in life. It is like the withered old woman who 
paints and rouges and dresses like a girl. But leyasu 's 
tomb is commanding of reverence and respect, because 
nothing seems so strikingly set in its will to live as the 
spirit of leyasu about his tomb. 



i 




XIX 

A RING ROUND THE SUN 

'N this modern age one can throw a ring round 
the heart of the Rising Sun in the matter of 
a few days. It may be an engagement, but 
not a wedding-ring. Here and there is a 
little luster, but most is plain and ordinary. 
The gem in the setting, however, is certainly Amano- 
Hashidate, the Ladder of Heaven. It lies beyond the 
bay of Maizuru, on the Japan Sea. In these days the 
Ladder of Heaven is being guarded by monster battle- 
ships which, though they do not prevent you from 
seeing, prohibit your taking away any perfect images of 
the way to gloryland. Here, too, one must not look very 
closely at things within seven thousand yards of that 
which is interesting, and when you want to see, not climb, 
the Jacobean ladder you must perch yourself on top of 
a hill and look between your legs. The long land-spit 
which stretches out into the bay then does indeed reach 
heaven. 

What is heaven, however, compared with meeting a 
good man? He was the sendo on the little boat who 
took me out over the waters along the length of the 
"ladder." He was old, still alert, and led me back over 
the ladder of days which he had climbed from his boy- 
hood. The heaven of his youth still hovered in his mind, 
a youth astir with war and revolution, the days when first 
the hated foreigner disturbed the even tenor of Japanese 



296 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

seclusion. He was a professional wrestler then, but 
now he ferries his little boat upon this bay, making it 
easier for the indolent to glide toward heaven instead of 
climbing the narrow "ladder." 

Returning to Kyoto, I purchased a ticket for Arima, 
a small hot-springs bathing-resort back of Kobe. But 
when I got to Aiyabe I decided to go straight on to 
Kyoto. The ticket from Maizuru to Arima was some- 
thing like twenty-five sen more than from Maizuru to 
Kyoto. It took half a dozen clerks at the station to 
figure this out and finally give me what I regarded as 
my receipt indicating the amoimt due me. When I 
reached Kyoto station I was again bombarded by de- 
mands, and finally left the station with both the ticket 
and the sense of having been despoiled of twelve and a 
half cents. But they didn't care. 

With Kyoto as the starting-point the train went north 
toward Tsuruga, the port of embarkation for Vladi- 
vostok. It is a little town of eighteen thousand inhab- 
itants, a scattered and soulless village. What can you 
expect of a port famous for its cod and seaweed? The 
future of Tsuruga is, however, dependent upon Japan's 
future in Siberia, its proximity to the continent giving 
it an advantage over every other port in Japan. 

From Tsuruga, for the next hundred miles, there is no 
seaweed and the cod do not fly in the air. The entire 
distance can be described in a few words, the word tunnel 
coming in at the most unexpected moments. Oc- 
casionally glimpses of the sea between sharp ravines, or 
moimtain barriers still packed with snow, though it is 
late in spring, somewhat vary the scenes. One is aware 
of the rigor of the winters here by signs no one needs to 
explain. The roofing of houses is unique. To keep the 
shingles from being blown away by the sea-winds, stones 
are laid in rows quite close to one another. The plains 
which lie back of the coast toward the moimtains about 



COD AND SEA-WEED 297 

Takaoka are as unique in Japan as Japan is in the world. 
Accustomed as one soon becomes, in this congested land, 
to see the country literally linked with crowded villages, 
the sight of plains studded with homes set apart from 
one another is a great relief. One would think that, this 
region being an extremely cold one, the houses would 
have been built closer together, but instead they stand 
several acres apart, each encircled with a small growth 
of spear-shaped pines. This makes of the entire plain 
one scattered, picturesque village. Farther north, the 
train runs along the edge of the sea. Villages are here 
more ordinary and more ordinary things are villages. 
Fishermen, unable to use their junks during the rigors 
of winter, haul them upon the shore into huts of straw, 
tenantless structures breasting the winds. 

Historically, the district is not without its interest, 
though, in a country which for centuries had been rent 
by intestine strife, it becomes wearisome to trace places 
famous for historic crimes. From this region came the 
last resistance to the rule of Hideyoshi, the great gen- 
eral; and here echo the sympathies for Yoshitsune, one 
of the greatest heroes in Japan, who fled thither to escape 
the jealous ingratitude of his brother, Yoritomo, genera- 
tions earlier. Here at Fukui, after an idle peace of three 
hundred years, during which all development was re- 
garded with dire suspicion, came one of the first calls for 
the outer world. One of the first men to sacrifice his 
life for the sake of foreign trade came from this northern 
shoreland. The circumstances are interesting. The 
actions of this man had come to the ears of the shogun. 
Fearing lest the truth that this wealthy man had trans- 
gressed the shogun's orders become known and others as 
sympathetic with opening the country to foreign trade 
become involved, he was charged falsely with having 
poisoned the stream which caused an epidemic. Thus 
was the iconoclast removed. 



298 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

To-day the country is known throughout the world as 
a source of silk, habutae (a glossy silk), lacquer ware, 
kutani pottery, makie lacquer, bronze wares, and even 
patent-medicine supplies. 

There is now a through train from Tsuruga to Tokyo, 
by way of Naoetsu and Karuizawa. From Naoetsu 
the train dips to the southeast, slowly ascending a valley 
the southern side of which is flanked by a range of moun- 
tains. These were still heavily clad with snow w^hich 
lay far down the slopes. Even upon the fields about us 
thick patches of snow lay melting slowly in the bright 
sun. It was warm enough to remain on the platform 
without an overcoat. Passing through Takada, I was 
surprised by the ponderous projections from the houses 
out over the streets. These were necessary, for during 
winter the fall of snow is so heavy that without them 
passage would be impossible. 

The region, though well cultivated where more or less 
level, is, in the light of other places in Japan, extremely 
desolate. Considering further how crowded these islands 
are, the uncultivated mountain slopes seem in contrast 
even more barren than they really are. They have few 
trees upon them, with only here and there a cluster, 
within which lurks a shrine to Heaven knows whom. 
One simply becomes disgusted with the flood of literature 
which attributes world fame to every rock and stream 
and mountain. I had thus made a semicircle round the 
heart of Japan of close on to five hundred miles under 
by no means favorable conditions, without seeing any- 
thing worth going five miles to see. 

Karuizawa, the summer resort of foreign missionaries 
and wealthy Japanese, is high tableland with little 
variation. Mount Asama was then unusually active. 
A cloud of white fume hovered about the obstructing 
mountain peak, while a stream of dark-brown ash floated 
down the slope toward the east. Then we began entering 



TRAIN COMFORTS 299 

and emerging from tunnels — and night overtook us 
before we reached Tokyo. 

Within their private homes I am sure few people are 
as careful and orderly as the Japanese, but on the trains 
and in public places their absolute carelessness and unti- 
diness are unbearable. Banana-peels are thrown upon 
the floor, egg-shells, tobacco — everything unedible finds 
its way into the aisles. Then comes the overcrowding. 
For over an hour on the Limited Express from Tokyo to 
Kobe there wasn't a seat to be had. Not that there 
wasn't room enough, but that Japanese, unaccustomed to 
sitting on chairs, double their legs under them or stretch 
out full length upon the long side-seats of the car. 
There wasn't a sleeper to be got for days. A Kobe 
Japanese gentleman of my acquaintance was on the 
train with his two children. He was compelled to spread 
a blanket on the floor of the platform for the kiddies. 
Japanese are great travelers. They simply move in 
swarms, and, go where one will, this herding is unavoid- 
able. While the masses are crowded beyond endurance, 
at Tokyo and Kyoto there are special sections of the 
station reserved for the imperial household which are 
never opened, nor is vulgar foot permitted to tread upon 
them. As one foreigner aptly put it, * ' In Japan there is 
no false modesty, but a great deal of false dignity." 

Mothers sit nursing their sturdy offspring. One 
Japanese woman, just returned from America, and in 
foreign clothes, actually forced the breast upon an 
irritable youngster in trousers and shoes. He wiggled 
and protested, and she handled him as though he were 
a sack of oats, but finally she won out and stifled his 
screaming with a mouthful of breast. Another woman 
nursed her prodigal youngster every other minute, 
serving, between courses, whole bananas and Japanese 
tea. It seems that the Japanese mother is patient 
under such circumstances largely because her person- 



300 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ality has been suppressed or was never developed. A 
western woman is therefore naturally more easily 
irritated by the whims of her children. 

Things which irritate a foreigner in Japan do not seem 
to trouble the native in the least. There are things innu- 
merable to try your temper in the East. Japan is like a 
secret society which puts a proposed member through an 
absurd and trying initiation before it permits him to enjoy 
any of its esoteric advantages. Japanese are everywhere 
putting little things in your way. It may be only a few sen 
or it may be a smile. A Japanese smile prevents you from 
knowing what is really going on in the mind behind it. 

You order your horse for the road to the foot of Fuji. 
You allow three hours in which to saddle it. It is there 
half an hour late. You find that it is a balky horse and 
must turn it back, but when you ask for a refund the 
dealer counter-attacks with a request for a tip for the 
boy. The "guide," who is urged upon you for the as- 
cent of the sacred mountain, does not hesitate to induce 
you not to go the full way for which he has been ordered 
by "advising" against it, but when returning the same 
way you went you ask for a refund, the agent throws in 
the word "holy" somehow and refuses to give it. You 
appeal to the Tourist Bureau, but the bureau does not 
include that phase of helpfulness in its general run of 
business. You order your lunch made up for the top 
of the mountain at a hotel with a big sign declaring 
that it caters to foreign travelers. There is no conveni- 
ence suitable to one's tastes, and finally when you reach 
the summit you discover that the sandwiches have been 
buttered with an abominable grease, and are compelled 
to cast them over into the crater. It takes three or four 
intruders successively to discuss the simple details of the 
ascent, which, if properly handled, would have been ar- 
ranged in a moment elsewhere. They keep coming 
back every five minutes, each with a new tale to tell. 



A BROKEN LINK 301 

And long after you have really settled the problems one 
returns for a final answer which you have given him a 
number of times before. 

On the other hand, I have taken a bath, used a room 
for an hour and a half, had Japanese tea and cakes at 
one little hotel, and then sat and chatted with the whole 
crew of servants for two hours more — ^but when I asked 
for my bill I was told there would be no charge. The 
extreme rarity of such experiences, however, makes 
them worthy of mention. 

By the time I left Tokyo and visited Kamakura, with 
its great bronze image of Buddha, the loveliest work of 
art in Japan, and had myself driven across country in a 
four-wheeled hansom — a rare sight in Japan — and got 
on my train bound for Nagoya, I was so weary and dis- 
gusted with accommodations and crowding that I felt 
I had seen enough of the heart of modem Japan. In- 
stead of arriving at Nagoya, with its wonderful old 
castle-fortress, early in the morning, as the Tourist 
Bureau had advised me I would, we moved in at mid- 
night. I was too weary to make a change and stayed 
right on all the way to Kobe, planning to visit the 
fountain-head of Shintoism — ^Yamada Ise — another time. 

In the morning there was no water in the washroom 
of the first-class coach, and no towels, no dining-car, and 
no privacy. Added to this, five Japanese sat all through 
the night drinking whisky by the tumblerful, and 
third-class passengers, for whom there was no room in 
the coaches, stood upon the first-class platform, peeping 
in upon the foreigners through the unfrosted figures in 
the frosted pane in the door. I vowed I had had enough 
traveling in Japan. But the restless spirit is not so 
easily subdued, and, willy-nilly, the wanderer sets on his 
way again. There are heights still imconquered. Fuji 
being the symbol of Japan, one is never at rest till its 
meaning is understood. 




XX 

FUJI — THE ATTAINABLE 

'EISHA do not dazzle stray passengers at 
stations like Numazu at five o'clock in 
the morning. Japan is then sleepy, damp, 
and silent. Only the tireless river stretches 
along and scratches its back against the 
stone embankments or plays round the pillars of the 
bridge. A woman, kimono down to her waist, may be 
washing clothes in the stream. A man of about forty 
and his sturd}^ wife may be carrying their household 
effects from their home to a boat without exchanging a 
word as they pass each other. These are human 
currents. 

But what am I doing at Numazu at that hour? I 
have been rushing all night with the current of commerce 
determined to get to Fujiyama. In order to do that, it 
being now ''off the beaten tracks of Japan," I had to get 
off at Numazu. So fast is the rush of business these 
days in Nippon that trains have no time for such places 
as Mount Fuji. We dreamers and pilgrims seem but 
driftwood which sometimes finds a convenient pillar to 
catch hold of. And Numazu is that pillar. 

Once before I had been torn past O Fuji and deposited 
in Tokyo. On my return, I again missed my "grip." 
This time I conquered. Once firm at Numazu, it was 
nothing to reach Gotemba, a village at the foot of the 
mountain with more worshipers treading its arduous 
heights than even that from which the great sermon was 




READY FOR THE ASCENT OF FUJI 




THE SLOPE IS STEEP, BUT SHE MUST GET THERE EKE SHE DIES 



NIGHT AT GOTEMBA 303 

delivered. Fuji, Fujiyama, Fuji San, O Fuji of poetry, 
the Fuji pictures of which fairly litter the walls (where 
there are walls) of Japan, Fuji of winter snows, Fuji of 
many shrines, Fuji of Dai Nippon. And it is Fuji which 
has called you to Japan, it is Fuji which keeps you there 
if you have not seen it, and it is Fuji which finally gets 
you. Then you rest — but just as you did when mother 
told you that ''just one more" fairy-story before you 
fell asleep. 

The day is stormy, in spite of assurance from every 
one about Gotemba that the weather will be fine. Black, 
heavy clouds completely screen the pyramid of Fuji 
and peals of thunder roll across a quarter of the universe. 
Still people insist it is safe to start. Finally the post- 
office clerk telephones up to the summit, still concealed, 
and is told that no ascent must under any circumstances 
be undertaken this day. And we prepare for a night at 
the inn. 

It is 11.30 P.M., and in spite of the sad, stormy wind 
which is driving the clouds to huddle near the earth, the 
blind massageur makes his way through the one main 
and few minor streets of Gotemba, over and over again. 
There is a sad appeal in the two lone notes coming from 
his tin flute. And there is a sad weariness in the vigorous 
wind which howls through the cracks in the wooden 
sliding shutters or rattles the loose paper windows. 

Long before morning comes you are wakened by a 

rattling of tongues such as was never heard since Babel. 

Some pre-morning train has arrived with pilgrims and 

the various hotelkeepers are trying to lure them in. 

The noise at a circus, the calls of the side-show men, 

is a phenomenon distinct from this; it forms as it were 

a pyramid of sound based on general confusion. But 

here, wakened from sleep into a night but three-quarters 

gone, with general silence round about, these voices 

contain an element of self-confidence as though there 
20 



304 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

was no need of strain. So they rattle along at a low 
key, the only sound in a somnolent world. 

By noon we are off, having been delayed three and 
a half hours, waiting for our horses to take us to the 
first station. The main part of this eight-mile ride is in 
the open; then you arrive at a bit of wooded tableland, 
the ground of which is softly bedded with scoria. This 
is, as it were, the instep of the foot of great Fujiyama. 
Emerging from the forest, you come to a gradual slope 
of cinder-land dull with lifelessness. Impressions here 
are somewhat blurred by the fact of newness and the 
sudden reversion to wildness on the part of one of our 
horses. He has perhaps learned the trick. The ascent 
is no joy to him, hence why should he take to it without 
protest ? We had reached the first intermediate station 
and had dismotmted for rest. He balked at being 
remounted, and my companion decided to walk with me, 
and the horse was sent back. 

The "guide," who pants and spits and sweats and 
trudges on under the five-pound weight you have placed 
upon his shoulders, is an amusing little thing. You 
wonder how one whose "profession" is climbing Fuji 
can have learned so little about walking and about 
breathing and so much about overcharging. 

Two hours pass. You push aside the curtain of trees 
and breathe the first cool draught of mountain sweetness. 
It is four o'clock. The heavens are gray, the earth 
serene. The clouds above are coming down below. 
The very trees are spun about in webs of mist. Lost 
cloudlets move slowly in and out as though cautiously 
seeking a safe place for the night, and the higher we go 
the heavier things become. The trees are now below us, 
and we have reached the rotted lava and have come to 
Fuji's own. 

Every step is a thrust which sends this old earth of 
ours farther and farther into the syrtis of space. Con- 



THE NAKED GOAL 305 

tentment ends where the forest ends; beyond is the 
naked goal. One seems to be walking up into infinity. 
Nothing but the gray telephone poles are seen of human 
makeshift. Huts or caves built of lava clinkers will be 
our only protection, but from beneath they cannot be 
distinguished from the reddish-brown dullness of the 
mountain. The rifts of clouds are now deep below us 
and have taken upon themselves the burden of Fuji's 
shadow, holding it up as princes hold the trailing robes 
of their emperor. The earth wheels slowly round, 
throwing its own great shadow over that of Fuji. 

We zigzag our way upward over the brown ashes 
which crunch beneath our feet. A light is pointed out 
to us as the third station, as the fourth, the fifth, but 
every time there is a half-way station or two between. 
And the brown ash becomes darker, but the crunching 
under our feet continues. 

The sun is gone, and yet the sunlight lingers on the 
cloud-reefs round the world. The night born of little 
shadows weds with the wind, while yet the sunlight 
lingers yonder on the rim of space. It is now but a 
simple streak of color without substance. It does not 
rest upon the rind of earth. Seen from these outer 
peaks, it glows softly off in space. The clouds crouch 
low, eager to slip out of the reach of their enemy, the 
wind. They become ashen gray. They invade the 
Nubian darkness as gray hair the black locks of youth. 

From the northeast come flashes of lightning. It is a 
night which, among men, harmonizes with terror and 
revolution; on the summit of Fuji it is an intoxicating 
mixture of distance dissolved in space. Down there 
below the collision of two small bodies extinguishing a 
spark of life would be called a tragedy; up here, among 
the worlds, one could watch a war of stars with unruffled 
detachment. 

We reached the seventh station somewhere about one 



3o6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

o'clock. The moon had aiready decided to look the 
other side of Fuji in the face, and the wall of darkness 
we were left to climb seemed more and more inaccessible. 
Moonlight in the sphere of ordinary mortals is ripples 
and shadows; moonlight on Fuji is as undisturbed as 
water in the ocean's depths. But the crunching of the 
cinders never ceased beneath our feet. 

I was loath to go in. The long, low hut-cave packed 
with sleepers one against the other, the thick juton 
covering each and rolling from one to the other like a 
paralyzed sea, the thick green smoke choking life — that 
was no lure against the superb outside. 

The wind was colder than a wind in December. The 
two slender candles barely holding on to the flame which 
the wind through the cracks sought to snatch, the brass 
bowl and polished brass inscriptions on the altar of the 
little shrine in which we were quartered, reflected a 
glimmer of light, while the towels, hung by business men 
to advertise their trade, flapped and swayed as though 
merely under the eaves. 

At sea-level the sun rises : from the top of Fuji the sun 
is bom. How many thousands have toiled through the 
night to attend this rebirth! Princes and paupers, and 
legend even includes an emperor of China. Men may 
not be bettered in the slightest so far as their actions 
among men go after their return, but no man can carry 
away with him remembrances of sunrise from the 
summit of Fuji and not be a different man. It is like 
love purified, for there is neither give nor take in it. 

Two thousand feet above us on the cinder slopes was 
a sight I shall never forget, a sight which can occur only 
on rare occasions and only in a country politically pin- 
nacled as is Japan. Just above the eighth station, or 
about twelve thousand feet above the sea, following the 
serpentine irregularity of the path, moved a throng of 
men in khaki and in black. As the sun appeared over 



MORNING AT THE TOP 307 

the cloud-reef below, this entire mass halted and faced 
about, and a dim, distant sound of exclamation quivered 
down the slope. There were fifteen hundred soldiers 
who had come to guard the Japanese Prince Kuninomiya 
on his way to the summit. Added to this mass must 
have been fully five hundred civilians making their first 
or annual ascent. I had all sorts of visions of Oriental 
salutations of the sun, but though the fact that these 
men came on order and not on impulse somewhat dulled 
the splendor of that scene, still it was inspiring beyond 
words. 

The first ascent I made was from Subashiri. When 
we reached the peak at six-thirty we were welcomed by 
the biting wind, strong enough to lift whomsoever vent- 
ured away from the lava wall clear off his feet. Very 
few climbers went anywhere near the crater, and those 
who did returned rather hurriedly. In double file, the 
soldiers were marched off up the ridge and they disap- 
peared in a cloud. We risked the wind and reached the 
edge, creeping on our stomachs for a glance over into the 
crater. A gale from over the gulch pressed down the 
deep pit and brought back with it a cloud of mist. 
Heaps of snow lay bedded in the inner cavities where 
once was seething lava. As the wind made a breach in 
the cloud it revealed the snowdrifts like sharp, angry 
teeth. My companion, just a youth, said, with some- 
what of awe in his voice, ''It felt as though you 
were looking into something which you had no right 
to see." 

On the second ascent, the following year, from the 
Gotemba side, our progress, especially after the last 
station this side of the summit, was much slower. This 
short last lap took us an hour and a half to negotiate, 
slipping on the loose clinkers beneath our feet. At one 
place we entered as it were a pocket into which the wind 
could not get. The heat of the sun was intense; and 



3o8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

when at last we reached the crater, rest was the only 
thing desirable. 

The day could not have been more perfect, even though 
it was seven days after the favorable season. There 
wasn't a cloud about, the nearest being fully ten thou- 
sand feet below us, where they were packed along the 
shore like driven snow. So many pictures are seen 
everywhere in Japan in which Fuji plays a prominent 
part, but it seems to me that the glory of the mountain is 
from its summit down. The sea, fringed with cloud, 
was spread with mist. Behind us, the crater was cold 
and void. It is not deep, but clogged with scoria, irregu- 
lar and cavernous. Some day, we are told, it will burst 
open again and the spot now frequented will become the 
edge of ruin reborn. 

Descent is rapid. The Gotemba side seems vastly 
more desolate than that of Subashiri. No one keeps 
to the zigzag path, but all cut a straight line for the 
bottom. The broad sweep of powdered brown cinder 
into which one sinks ankle-deep lies interminably beneath 
one. What a scene of utter desolation! One's heart 
sinks in emotion as does the body in space. One longs 
to get down again to the level of human commonality 
where life abounds even though in conflict; where emo- 
tion is tempered with materiality and made tangible. 
Emotion is coarse below, but is more real. And one 
vows never to make the ascent again — ^while one is on 
high. But though one leaves the waste of ash behind, 
in memory it never leaves one, but lures one for another 
ascent. 

At the base we obtained horses again and trudged 
along over the seven and a half miles back to Gotemba. 
It is wearisome and slow, because Japanese horses are 
all led. We entered a heavy fog which lay over the 
earth all night. Images of trees in weird, fantastic shapes 
stood embossed in the white mist. A more pictorial 



FUJI WORSHIP 309 

ending to our ascent could not have been made. Our 
train of horses and coolies, the two girls leading the ani- 
mals and the boy following behind; ahead of us moved 
another climber — all pushing on into the mist. 

Seeing the throngs which crowded the path of Fuji- 
yama, I wondered which one of us really knew why he 
climbed its slopes. Some put it down to Shintoism and 
call these climbers pilgrims. But that excludes me. 
Some say they are nature- worshipers, but Fuji is not 
beautiful at close range. 

The use of the word "worship" is so entangled with 
rites and incantations that it is hard to say whether this 
opinion is justified. I saw some worship at Fuji. 
There were many who had come from great distances to 
make the ascent. The paths are beset with shrines at 
which some form or other of religious practice is con- 
ducted, such as stamping the white pilgrims' coats or 
burning the seal into their staffs. But this is in itself 
not worship. Yet only a deep religious conviction could 
make old men and women undergo the strain of such a 
climb. In the summer of 19 18 over seventeen thousand 
people, including seven women of over seventy years of 
age, made the summit. And once a zealous couple at- 
tempted to spend a winter on the peak and had to be 
rescued before very long. 

It is said that Japanese are great lovers of nature or 
are nature- worshipers. This does not strike me as being 
exactly the correct statement of the case. I cannot say 
that I saw any exceptional regard for Fuji shown by any 
of the hundreds of climbers I met in both my ascents. 
Fact is, Fuji cannot be loved in itself — but only as a 
symbol when seen from a distance. 

In place of what I should call a real love of nature 
there exists in Japan a sort of nature ritual. Super- 
stition has invested many things in nature with spiritual 
significance or even deified them, but apart from that 



310 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Japanese do not take exceptional delight in the wild. 
I do not say that all Japanese do not really love nature, 
but the claptrap which says all do is as false as are a 
good many things said for Japan. There is much neglect 
of nature, actual and potential. A foreign enthusiast 
wrote about Japanese love of flowers and said that they 
"prefer to leave them in their natural state," and that 
to compare this love with our desire to pick them is to 
make of us "a race of vandals." Yet this statement 
was made in utter disregard of the fact that all cities are 
possessed of flower-girls who sell them in the streets, and 
that flower arrangement is the pride and the art of Japan. 
Japanese do pick flowers, just as do we. But whether 
they frequent places of beauty for their beauty's sake 
or simply because Buddhism and Shintoism have selected 
them for shrines and temples is another matter. And 
whether they pour out into the open to see the plum- 
and cherry-blossoms or simply because it gives them an 
opportunity to indulge in gallons of sake and beer is 
likewise a moot question. 

Then why do people climb and crowd old Fuji ? Why 
did I sit in that little shrine and write by the light of 
two thin candles? Why did they bum themselves out? 
Why did the flame cling to the wick when it might have 
wandered off with the wind ? Why did the brass glitter ? 
Why does the wind blow, the bell ring, the house stand ? 
And Fuji, dead and crumbling, why does it support 
these thousands of pilgrims? 

Twelve thousand feet above the sea hovers the 
answer. Twelve thousand feet out of the reach of the 
waves and the sound of the sea — that sea twelve thou- 
sand miles of which I have been four times over. Twelve 
thousand years ago Fuji was submerged beneath that 
sea ; for twelve thousand years it slowly rose. And now 
it is submerged in a sea of space twelve thousand times 
twelve thousand would barely measure a degree of its 



A SEA OF SPACE 311 

immensity. Ninety-two million miles away is the 
unswerving sun; halve it and the moon beams lovelessly; 
encircle it and you have slashed a thousand suns with 
your imagined line's directness, pierced a myriad con- 
stellations, and lost your mathematical arrow in the 
heart of some unbegotten form of life. Little wonder 
then that Fuji is worshiped by the Japanese, for from 
its peak these things stand out clearly and our world of 
little things shrinks to the size of a grain of star-dust. 



i 



Part Four 
CRITICAL 




XXI 

ETA — THE SUBMERGED 

fT is a commonplace in photography that good 
pictures are obtained by ''exposing for the 
shadows and letting the high lights take 
care of themselves." Feeling that my pict- 
ure of Japanese life would be fiat if I per- 
mitted myself to dwell upon its happier phases only, I 
took to investigating its nether worlds. The measure 
of real progress in any nation is the extent to which 
consideration is given to social-welfare work. That is 
exactly where one can put his finger on the vital things 
in Japanese life and see whether there has been any 
real progress or not. 

On questions of form and morality Japanese are be- 
coming wise enough to see that imitation and whole- 
sale adoption of western ways are dangerous. But on 
questions of social legislation they are not wise in our 
follies. Industrially they have copied everything foreign 
without discretion. Thus, instead of avoiding our in- 
dustrial evils, they have stuck their heads in their 
accumulations of golden sand. Practically nothing is 
being done to get at the roots of poverty. And as late 
as August 8, 1 91 8, it was only necessary for a man to 
be known as a socialist for him to be tried in camera 
and sentenced on the charge of Use-majesty, even though 
the basis of the case was a personal quarrel. 

Besides having acquired most of the evils of western 
industrialism, Japan has had unique evils of her own. 



3i6 JAPAN—REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Foremost among these are the distinctions which set 
apart a section of the Japanese for absolute ostracism — 
the eta. The growth has been cancerous because in no 
sense foreign to the Japanese body-poHtic. It is of the 
essence of Japan's political, religious, social, economic, 
and moral systems by which the country has thrived 
for twenty-five hundred years. It is bound up with the 
false notions of honor, prestige, and divinity, and can- 
not be dissociated from bushido. 

The purpose of this section is to touch upon all these 
phases of Japanese life. One of the basic principles of 
Buddhism is illuminated by the answer of the Blessed 
One to the bhikkhus on their question, ''What conduct 
toward women dost thou prescribe?" ** Think to your- 
self," he answered. "I, as a samana, will live in this sin- 
ful world as the spotless leaf of the lotus, unsoiled by the 
mud in which it grows." And though without written 
code that also is the manner in which Japan's political 
structure has grown. Yet before we can in any way 
appreciate the quality of Japanese imperialism we must 
know the nature of that very mud in which it grows — 
and that muck is etaism — slums, crime, and industri- 
alism; the leaf is its schools, its art and its history be- 
spattered with the mud of politics. The flower we can 
only sense, nor will the writer prophesy whether it is 
blooming or has turned toward the fall of its existence. 

There are over a million human beings in Japan who, 
though essentially Japanese, live a miserable existence, 
worse than that of the ordinary poor and even lower 
than the criminal. They are the eta — the pariah, the 
butchers, tanners, and scavengers. At first ''eta'* 
seems merely a mysterious term of opprobrium. Even 
among the foreigners one hears the word, though, un- 
fortunately, always in anger at some grievance. Yet it 
is a term one dare not use to a man's face. One flings it 
at him behind his back, in sneaking abuse. Eta, thus 



"SH! DONT USE THAT WORD!" 317 

employed, means *' dirty dog,** and something worse. 
The eta are also a convenient *'goat" for politicians 
where anything goes wrong. When the short-sighted 
Japanese bureaucrat sees his "yacht" of state in danger 
from the mine he has himself set afloat, he attacks the 
first humble sampan that looms on the horizon. So the 
eta are sources of unrest in the Empire, and loomed large 
in the case of the rice riots. 

Aside from the muffled use of the term, I heard little 
and saw less of any people answering to this mysterious 
name during the early months of my residence in Japan. 
However, examples of this class of people roam about 
the crowded byways and make their living — the men by 
mending geta (wooden clogs), the women by playing 
the Japanese guitar. During my first days of residence 
in Kyoto I was disturbed every morning by one of the 
geta-menders who wandered round and round about 
that particular square, crying in a somewhat pleading 
and pleasing tone: "Naosh, nao-osh, nao-osh!" his voice 
sinking appealingly. The word naoshi, to mend, becomes 
almost unrecognizable, like the calls of our newsboys. 

About the time that I began thus to distinguish certain 
outcasts among the poor I became interested in the 
slums in and about Kobe — slums such as in our under- 
standing of the word do not and could not exist in the 
West. There I met a young Japanese evangelist who 
has given himself up to the study and elevation of the 
poor. Through him I learned something more of the 
eta. As we wandered into the depths of unknown Japan, 
I used the word unthinkingly. 

' * 'Sh ! Don't use that word here, ' ' he whispered. * ' It 
will make them angry." My interest aroused, he and I 
planned to devote the following winter to investigating 
life among them, little thinking that three months later 
they would have forced themselves upon the attention 
of the whole Empire. 



3i8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

From then on I enlisted the services of any one who 
came across my path, and visited several villages in 
which these people still live. It was not a simple matter. 
The Japanese are still living in their old exclusiveness. 
Proud, trying to maintain appearances, they are loath 
to let the outsider look into that side of their life which 
is likely to jeopardize their fame. It became obvious 
to me from the first that the every-day Japanese would 
not give me any great assistance. 

"It will be very difficult to find out," said a young 
Japanese lawyer from Tokyo who was stopping at the 
same hotel. **Its difficulty doesn't bother me," I pro- 
tested. But to every question he assured me he knew 
nothing about them. However, I extracted quite a 
little from him. 

I was amazed to find how little the Japanese really do 
know of these miserable ones round about them. The 
hotel proprietor's son, eager to practise his English, con- 
sented to guide me to their villages, but when in one he 
stood aloof, almost as though in terror of contamination. 

It was not only from the average man that I en- 
countered indifference. I had been told to see the 
police for information. The chief stood stamping 
records with a seal, doing work any child should have 
done. After a fifteen-minute debate I was told to go to 
the governor of the Ken for permission. The governor 
immediately sent the head of the department dealing 
with these people out with me, and thence I had a retinue 
of inspectors, interpreters, and followers. 

Though I now had some official assistance, it took me 
days to get hold of the threads which lead to these 
unapproachable outcasts, pariahs who have become so 
degraded that they resent any show of interest in them. 
I did, however, succeed in discovering where to look for 
them. Eta villages are not hard to locate. Generally 
they are somewhat on the outskirts of the main town or 




SEVENTEEN THOUSAND PILGRIMS MADE THE SUMMIT OF FUJI THAT SUMMER 




PUNTS, RAFTS, AND LIGHTERS CROWD THE RIVER AT NAGOYA 




THE SAMISEN HAS NO MUSIC IN IT BUT REQUIRES A LONG FACE 



A SOCIAL ERUPTION' 3^9 

city, but often in modem Japanese cities they will be 

found surrounded by thickly crowded districts. In 

Kobe, for instance, one village is side by side with the 

worst slum to be found in Japan — Shinkawa. The 

stranger cannot tell which is slum and which eta village, 

except that his guide will immediately whisper to him 

not to use the word eta any more. There is also a 

large eta district in Hyogo — ^which is the older city 

now incorporated in the city of Kobe. A little out 

toward the hills is another district known as eta. Then 

nine miles from Kobe is Shioya, on the Inland Sea, a 

lovely residential section for foreigners and rich Japanese. 

A path leads across the hills to an eta village a couple of 

miles away. It is merely a small group of thatch-roofed 

houses with mud walls not a little weathered, which, 

but for its isolation, would not be more noticeable than 

any other Japanese rural village. In and about Kyoto, 

the loveliest city in all Japan, the greatest number of 

eta will be found. 

When I had got to the point of mapping out the 

geographical distribution of the eta, my investigation 

received an impetus and a new turn. They sprang into 

the political limelight. It is always convenient to 

blame the dog when anything happens, and something 

very serious was beginning to happen. All over the 

Empire the poor were rising in rebellion against the high 

cost of living. Profiteers and speculators had been 

driving the price of rice away beyond the reach of the 

laboring element, to whom rice is the "bread'* of life. 

The initial rumbling of these outbreaks was in places as 

distant from the large eta centers as Toyama Prefecture, 

one hundred and fifty miles northwest from Tokyo, 

though the disturbances spread explosively to the big 

centers like Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Tokyo. The 

majority of the rioters were ordinary laborers — men and 

women. Yet all these facts notwithstanding, the eta 
21 



320 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

were immediately accused of being at 'the bottom of the _ 
trouble. It was safer to blame them than to trouble the 
speculators. 

A flurry of investigation forthwith took place. Accu- 
sations flew. Eyes were blinded. The government 
evaded accounting for the real causes of the riots by 
instigating investigations into the condition of the eta. 
It was as though a man seized with hunger pangs were 
to turn to the problem of why crabs walk both ways. 
Count Okuma, Japan's "Grand Old Man," ex-Premier, 
went so far in his wisdom in this matter as to compare 
these eta with the American negro slaves. In 187 1, after 
centuries of weary degradation, the eta were officially 
liberated. In 19 18, after half of one century of freedom, 
they realized they were in no wise better off than before. 
And the government admits that this unjust racial dis- 
crimination has not been eliminated by mere edict. 

Published sources of information being limited, I 
began to make my own observations concerning the 
present conditions of the outcasts. I found that there 
are several divisions of this low class of people. The 
Hinin, or non-humans, are beggars and vagrants. The 
Sanka, of whom there are about a thousand, are de- 
scendants of robber folk who inhabit the mountains 
{san). About three years ago a number of Sanka 
roamed the hills back of Kyoto. They lived in tents, 
holes in the ground, or in whatever crude shelters they 
could find. They were really nomad criminals. Then 
the government began a crusade against them, and for 
two years it has pressed and harassed them, finally 
forcing them back to Inari in Fushimi Province. Since, 
they have hid themselves completely. On Ikemachi, 
Kyoto, they may be found in kitchen-yadOy a type of 
restaurant common in the slums of Japan into which 
the poor come to cook for themselves, paying a few sen 
for wood and for the use of the ** equipment." 



i 



RIVER-BANK THINGS 321 

The Kawaramono were also an outcast lot who some 
two hundred years ago lived under the bridges along 
the shingle river-beds, from which they get their name, 
kawara being that part of the stony bed of a river which 
is dry except in high water, and mono meaning thing. 
Little is now to be seen of these unhappy people. On 
the west bank of the Kamogawa, which makes its 
broad and tortuous way through Kyoto, is a small 
village called Kuramaguchi. It is made up of these 
vagrants who had formerly kept the banks as their 
rendezvous. They have since risen in the social scale 
to where they are eta, earning their livelihood by simple 
agriculture and as greengrocers, or as stone masons and 
architects of tombstones (dokata). Their condition is 
rather good, their homes, as Japanese poor homes go, 
being fairly stable with even a chest of drawers and 
other evidences of civilization. It is said that there are 
several households among them reputed to be worth 
ten thousand yen each. The government has encour- 
aged organization among them into reform societies, 
whose object is to develop their physical and mental 
well-being, encourage cleanliness, orderliness, and good 
behavior. 

There are several other divisions now lost in the general 
term ''eta.'' The name represents no political or re- 
ligious class, but a social prejudice deeply rooted in 
the Japanese consciousness. Legally the term is taboo. 
They are now called the Shin-heimin, new-commoners, 
and thus, though legally no distinction is made between 
them and the common poor, the difference is recognized. 
With the people they are still outcasts, and none is so 
bold as to venture across the line. 

How, then, did they come to be outcasts? This is not 
an easy question to answer. Even some of the most 
thorough-searching authorities on Japanese history con- 
fess they are unable definitely to trace the origin of the 



322 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

eta. But there are some obvious sources from which 
they have been recruited. 

In the first place, there may be among them the off- 
spring of slaves taken by the Japanese from the Aino, 
the first inhabitants of the islands of Japan. The proud 
Japanese would gladly assign this alien origin to their 
outcasts. Indeed, they go still farther, trying to con- 
vince the world and themselves that these outcasts 
were Chinese and Korean prisoners of war. But a class 
that came into existence so many hundreds of years ago 
would interest us as foreign only if it had retained its 
original characteristics. This is not the case. James 
Murdoch, the historian, gives it as his opinion that the 
absence of Aino characteristics among the present eta 
is due to the gradual accession of degraded Japanese into 
their ranks. Eta cannot be recognized apart from the 
general type of Japanese. Therefore, for all practical 
purposes, all studies of the eta must be made on the 
assumption that they are Japanese. Thousands of the 
Yamato (pure Japanese) have filtered down into that 
stagnant group, thus leaving the problem Japanese, and 
not alien. It is therefore in the Japanese social order itself 
that we must look for an explanation of their existence. 

Within this social order, two noteworthy causes of 
etaism will be found — the Buddhist faith and feudal 
custom. 

Buddhism, that most gentle of religions, has been 
responsible for two great crimes in Japan. One is the 
eta; the other the treatment of animals; and these two 
crimes are closely interrelated. The edict against the 
killing of any creature has resulted in slow torture of 
undesirable animals, and the necessity of using them for 
clothing has brought into existence the eta. Even to 
this day Japanese will put kittens out to starve rather 
than do away with them outright. To touch the carcass 
of an animal was to become defiled, according to both 



A NEW LIGHT ON BUSHIDO 323 

Buddhism and Shintoism; yet, since it was unavoidable, 
the eta took upon themselves the burdens of this fanat- 
icism. To this day they are the butchers, the leather- 
dressers, and buriers of dead animals. They live in 
separate villages and cannot enter the houses of even 
the poorest of the poor. Among the Maories of New- 
Zealand there was a striking similarity. To allow an 
ordinary Maori to drink out of the cup of a chief was 
to render it taboo, and the miserable wretch upon whom 
fell the task of burying the dead was compelled to live 
apart in a state abject beyond description. 

Responsibility for the existence of the eta may sec- 
ondly be traced to Japanese military ethics. We have 
been led to believe that the Japanese aristocrats of old 
were all brave and faithful warriors, who out of a fear 
of disgrace following capture or out of loyalty to a de- 
ceased lord did not hesitate to commit harakiri, prefer- 
ring death to a life devoid of full happiness and glory. 
This custom is spoken of with intense pride by every one 
in Japan. But it is never published that there were not 
a few among Japanese soldiery who preferred to live in 
misery among the outcasts rather than cut themselves 
open according to code. Nature has its revenge upon 
all forms of social organization which tend toward 
crystallization. In Japan class distinction, till this very 
day being more set than anywhere else, almost defeated 
its own purpose. So there were some to whom life, no 
matter how mean, was dearer than a code, and they 
slipped away into the eta villages, cheating the sword of 
its prey. Some eta still have the armor which belonged 
to them as samurai. Perhaps these renegades among 
the old samurai were merely suffering from the fact that 
they were the only ones who had not wholly lost their 
sense of humor. 

There are now fully 1,200,000 eta, most of whom live 
within the vicinity of Kobe and Kyoto. The following 



324 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

list given me by Mr. Kagawa is perhaps as nearly correct 
as it is possible to make it, of those living near Kobe: 

n , ,. Number of 

Population Villages 

Chinese 4,557 4 

Korean (Immigrants) i)368 4 

(Captives) 5,204 5 

Those caring for shrines 4,881 8 

" *' " temples 945 6 

Sons of the aboriginal Aino 1,124 3 

Descendants from noted families 796 2 

Nomads 12,637 S6 

From common people 5,013 17 

Descendants from nobility 943 5 

" " samurai 4,754 13 

" " scavengers 5, 541 16 

" " tanners 2,189 11 

Offshoots of other colonies 3,388 15 

Beggars 727 i 

Unknown 13,835 65 

Total 67,902 231 

According to a book by Mr. Tomeoka Kosuke, who 
has devoted himself to the improvement of the eta, their 
distribution throughout the Empire is as follows: 

Hyogo (Kobe) 95,772 

Kyoto 72,222 

Fnkuoka 60,824 

Ehime 45>590 

Hiroshima 44,405 

Okayama 37,699 

Osaka ,. 34,878 

Miye 34,317 

Wakayama 32,935 

Kochi 27,705 

Shiga 23,721 

Saitama 23,332 

Yamaguchi 23,258 

Tokushima 29,012 

Total 585,670 



WITHIN AN ETA VILLAGE 325 

In the very heart of Kyoto, completely surrounded 
by ordinary working-class homes, in a district called 
Sanjo is an eta sore. We entered by way of a narrow 
little alley not more than five feet wide. Within this 
seclusion will be found several families of eta, mainly 
geta (wooden-clog) menders — ^dirty, crowded, wretched — ■ 
not even next to nature. 

I visited the village of Nogouchi, ten minutes* walk 
from Nishijin, the silk- weaving district of Kyoto. Here 
the poverty is just a hair's breadth above dire squalor, 
and the prospects of betterment half that space above 
hopelessness. The absence of even the simplest sign 
of refinement, decency, and healthfulness is appalling. 
There was but one exception. In one house, a rather 
good structure, was a new grass carpet on the mats. 

Among eta may be found some extremely well-to-do 
people, worth as much as ten thousand yen and over, 
but the vast majority of them are simply poor to whom 
poverty is not the worst of ills. They confront us with 
a curious problem. Sensitive and defiant, they resent 
any interest in them or attempt to help them. Yet 
they have no distinct religious convictions which evoke 
ostracism from the dominant religious groups. They 
have no group organization, each being too individu- 
alistic. In the slums I felt there was a kindly feeling 
toward the strange foreigner, but in the eta villages the 
air is strong with surliness and resentment. The 
"proprietor" of one hovel showed anger when I tried to 
photograph an old crony beside his door. A Pied 
Piper's following of diseased and emaciated children 
gathered in the eight- or ten-foot alleyways. The mob 
of little urchins was up in arms when I tried to photo- 
graph them. There was a division of opinion. Some 
were in favor; others feared the picture might get into 
the newspapers. This spirit is worthy of consideration. 
A strong individualism, a spirit of defiance and indiffer- 



326 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ence to consequence, obtains among them. They lack 
organization and social purpose. One man*s opinion is 
as good as another's, and even the little tots are ready to 
assert themselves. They were ready to mob me should 
I have gone counter to their wishes. Before the Restora- 
tion, it was left entirely to the eta to keep order in their 
own villages. 

It is obviously no simple task to devise ways and 
means of breaking down not only the outer world's 
prejudice, but their own false pride. It seems certain 
that if this were done, the eta would in no time cease to 
exist. In a couple of generations they will doubtless 
be reabsorbed into the Japanese people. Industrialism 
is already bringing them out of their isolation. When 
I visited the detention prison in Kobe, where one hun- 
dred and seventy-five of the rice-rioters were being held 
for trial, half a dozen in a cell, the warden told me that 
many of them were eta. At present the government is 
merely resorting to a stop- thief method of reform. To 
do away with etaism, more than mere legislation is neces- 
sary. It means doing away with the pride which, even 
to-day, when the samurai is no more, permits a Japanese 
to put into the 1918 Who's Who in Japan the infor- 
mation that he is the son of a samurai and his wife the 
daughter of one of the Heimin (common people). The 
government cannot be blamed entirely for this situation. 
A society for equality of treatment has been organized 
and meetings held, with many prominent officials and 
eta attending, but it is still too soon to prophesy. Etaism 
is a matter which the people as a whole have supported 
and which they must destroy. 

The government is trying to improve these conditions 
and to a very small extent has succeeded. But preju- 
dice is too deeply rooted. Marriage between eta and 
other Japanese is becoming more frequent, though it is 
said that recently a shoemaker offered ten thousand yen 



STRUGGLES TO EMERGE 327 

to any man outside the eta who would accept his daughter 
in marriage, but there was none so poor as to accept. 
A student of mine informed me that one pupil in his 
village school was from that class. He was exception- 
ally bright, of fairiy well-to-do parents. Still the 
others would not associate with him, and often called 
him names. There are frequent quarrels among the 
children of eta and other poor, and it is the delight of the 
latter to trick the eta children into saying the word 
**Etajima,*' the name of a large island, in order to get 
them to make the sound '*eta'* so offensive to them. 
(The name, however, has no connection whatever with 
the eta.) One story is extant of a man who, eta by birth, 
married a woman of good family. Later they discovered 
that they were both of eta origin. And a well-known 
Minister of the Navy is said to have come from these 
outcasts. I know a professor, one of the finest types of 
men I have met in Japan, of whom it has been said that 
he is of the eta. 

Christian missionaries have tried to work among the 
eta, but even they must be diplomatic. One American 
told me that in the district in which he lived some little 
work has been done among them by native Christians. 
But they are confronted with the question as to which 
would net them more souls — ^work among eta or among 
the ordinary poor — ^for if a Christian mixes too freely 
with the eta his chances for work among his equals are 
hazarded. This missionary tried to justify his case by 
comparisons with work among the negroes in the South, 
but the cases are not parallel, for the eta are not a separate 
race, as is the negro. No Christian worker would stay 
at an eta home if there were no hotel within reach, nor 
would he eat cake or drink tea with them. The eta once 
gave a tea for missionary purposes and were incensed 
because the guests left the food untouched. 

Only one act of gratitude shown the eta for anything 



328 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

done by them is legend among the Kobe people. The 
selling of flowers in the streets has been allotted to them. 
The story is that when officials were searching for the 
grave of Kusunoki Masashige, the celebrated warrior 
and arch-loyalist of the ill-fated Emperor Go-Daigo, 
they discovered that it had been kept in order and flowers 
placed upon it regularly by the eta, whose village was 
close by. 



J 




XXII 

WHERE SLUMS ARE SLUMS 

kVEN the back alleys in Japan are invaria- 
bly clean and sanitary." So wrote an 
American woman tourist for a magazine 
published by and for one of the Japanese 
steamship companies. This and similar 
statements have been the subject of not a Httle reflection 
on my part as I wandered about the streets of Japan. 
Yet I never realized how far from the truth it really is 
till I spent a few hours with Mr. Toyohito Kagawa in the 
slums of Shinkawa, Kobe. There is not a large city in 
the world which is without its poor districts, while some, 
like New York and London, are confronted with very 
serious conditions. But it is safe to say that in no 
civilized country in the world would just such conditions 
be met with as swamp the slums of this town of little 
over half a million people. Some years ago a street- 
cleaners' strike in New York left piles of garbage several 
feet high upon the streets, but, bad as that was, it was 
not to be compared with the accumulation of filth which 
at all times vitiates the slums of Shinkawa. For not 
only is there no efficient system for the removal of gar- 
bage, but the absence of sewerage (universal in Japan) 
makes the situation unmentionable. In New York and 
London, with over seven million people, the streets are 
wide enough for two or three wagons to pass one another 
at one time. In the streets of Shinkawa you can touch 
the buildings with both hands, and the rooms in the 



330 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

houses are seldom more than twelve feet by six, and 
there is never more than one room to a house. In 
these, on an average, four to five people shelter them- 
selves from the wind and rain. The only light and air 
available is from the five-foot door, and the only pro- 
tection from the damp ground is a little platform eigh- 
teen inches high which occupies most of the space and 
serves as a floor. The personal effects of the residents 
could be placed in a small hand-bag; and the only way 
of cleaning the juton in which they sleep would be by 
fumigation. 

Thirteen thousand people live in just this way. No 
one passing through the few main thoroughfares would 
ever imagine that the narrow openings, wide enough for 
only one person to pass through, lead to human habita- 
tions. Had I not had Mr. Kagawa with me, I should 
certainly not have thought of going in. 

The wretchedness of the conditions can best be told 
by giving a few figures. In the "olden times" when 
first these hovels were built they cost $2.50 per house; 
now, with the increased cost of materials, they are 
worth $7.50, and the land on which each stands is worth 
$7.50 per tsuho (thirty-six square feet). There are no 
privies, but open pits with but three mud walls and a 
straw roof — one of these for every hundred people. This 
sewage is removed not by the city, but by a special 
sanitary association known as the Ase Kumiai, the funds 
for which are subscribed by the people at two sen (one 
cent) a month. There are two public faucets for every 
thirteen hundred people. Naturally, the wells in the 
district are unclean and .use of their water for cooking is 
prohibited. I looked into one and it was full of debris; 
another was murky and unhealthful. During the 
drought of 191 7 people stood in queues of fifty and 
seventy waiting for the buckets allotted them. 

As is to be expected, the lists of the sick and dead 



SHINKAWA POOR 33 1 

are long, many times greater in proportion to the popu- 
lation than those in New York. Every two days three 
people die. So poor are the people that decent funerals 
are impossible, and in the case of deceased children the 
little bodies are placed in tea-boxes or orange-boxes and 
carried on the shoulders of some male relative to the 
crematory up the hill, where the city bums them for 
nothing, if the usual charge of three yen cannot be met. 
The birth-rate is nevertheless great. The children 
fairly litter the streets. In many cases they are not 
even registered, so that in 191 8 there were ninety-three 
boys of whom the state had no record. Legally these 
were not even Japanese subjects, though from eleven to 
twelve years of age. As a consequence they were 
excluded from the schools. 

There are four day nurseries, the one at One having 
been started by foreigners during the Russo-Japanese 
War and being still maintained largely by foreign con- 
tributions; and a Buddhist nursery recently opened. 
The Buddhists have also started a Salvation Army of 
their own, but its ramifications are still limited. There 
is another nursery belonging to a rag concern maintained 
for the benefit of the mothers sorting rags. The extreme 
fecundity of these poor people intensifies the sufferings 
of the little ones far beyond the normal. 

About 60 per cent of the people in Shinkawa are 
capable of earning their own living. Twenty per cent 
are sick and can be seen lying about on the mats of these 
dirty, open shelters, a prey to the evil conditions about, 
and in turn spreading the contagion. The remaining 
20 per cent offset disease and death by begging or 
picking the meager waste from garbage-boxes. There 
are about five hundred carpenters' helpers, such as earn 
their mite by carrying mud, plaster, and timber. Others 
work from twelve to fourteen hours a day in the dock- 
yards and factories, A fair number make their few sen 



332 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

by gambling. It is known to the police that one man is 
the ''king" of about seven hundred gamblers. Un- 
registered prostitution affords not a few a "living." 

Until the outbreak of the rice riots, practically nothing 
was done to better the situation. There is a dispensary 
to which from forty to sixty poor go daily for medicines. 
But food is what they need, not drugs. Lately the 
governor of the Ken established an employment bureau 
in Shinkawa, and a hospital was talked of. But what is 
necessary is that decent houses be built and the streets 
widened and straightened, to be followed by the laying 
of sewers which, progressive as Japan has been heralded 
to be, are still for the dim and distant future. 

The poor themselves are the most helpful to one 
another. The gamblers, hounded so bitterly by the law, 
make it a point to give lo per cent of all moneys 
passing through their hands for the relief of other poor. 
There is what is called the moshiko money club, the 
individuals of which contribute two or three yen, as 
the case may require, so that they may supply the 
urgent needs of another. This the debtor pays back 
month by month. Sometimes collections are made in 
sums of from five to ten sen from each household 
for the "unfortunate," who returns the amoimt as soon 
as he is able. 

Kobe is not alone in the possession of slums. The 
governor of Kyoto Ken sent with me the man in charge 
of the slum department to the Hitchi-jo police station 
of Kyoto. I was introduced to the chief of police, who 
ordered the inspector to guide us, who in turn ordered 
the chief for the district to come along. Add a couple of 
Doshisha University youths who followed the son of a 
doctor friend — ^head of a free maternity hospital — and 
I had a retinue almost as long as that of a daimyo of old. 
Sufficient, indeed, to take all the naturalness out of the 



IDLENESS 333 

timid poor and the eta. However, I appreciated the 
courtesy when I saw the places I was taken to. 

The slums are immediately to the right of the great 
Kyoto railway station as one comes out of it. Their 
position was provided for in the plans for the city as laid 
out by the architects twelve hundred years ago. Our 
first stopping-place was a little private hospital on the 
edge of the district. The day before they had four 
patients; that day they had only three. One died that 
morning. It was not much of a hospital, being no more 
than a small house of five or six rooms run by a lone 
doctor. 

As we left we began turning comers till we met the 
poHceman of the district. The inspector took second 
place as cicerone, advising, in a semi-whisper, that I 
avoid using the word "eta,'' as we had come among them 
and they would resent it. As we penetrated the district 
the conditions became poorer and poorer. The mud 
walls in the houses began to be full of holes, like any 
fabric after careless wear. In the ditches lurked stag- 
nant water and slime. The children, besides being dirty, 
were covered with sores. 

Yet these ills were but secondary to that of idleness. 
One evidence of indolence was the great number of 
children. The grown-ups stood about, doing nothing, 
while the walls of mud crumbled and the ditches turned 
green. Idleness was also obvious in the shops, for the 
wares were primitive and sparse, evidence of craftsman- 
ship almost entirely wanting. Aside from picking over 
some filthy rags or washing a worn-out garment, there 
was a neglect of doing which chilled one's sense of 
living. It seemed so cold in a world where nothing was 
being made, nothing sold, nothing done. It seemed they 
must go mad from very inertia. 

Then there was the smell. The odor of unwashed 
human beings, even on that chill December day, was 



334 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sickening. The dirty garments, which hung across 
bamboo poles from house to house, and which the police- 
man ordered removed as we passed, smelled offensively. 
And they had just been "washed." 

We have touched on the three worst features of the 
slums, but there was much more — or less. The little 
huts which harbored uncouth wretches rent for one 
cent a day. Yes, there was landlordism even there. 
Even these hovels, as next to nature as nature itself can 
stand them, were not owned by the people who lived 
in them. 

As we went a little farther we came to the very 
bottom — to the beggar class. Even in the slums ' * class ' ' 
distinction was to be found. They were set apart from 
the others. A pygmy of a woman with a baby on her 
back, her face covered with leper sores, stood at the 
door of her hovel. We passed her and went round the 
comer, thinking we had come to another house, but she 
emerged from that door like a rabbit with two holes to 
its burrow. She smiled complacently, as though trying 
to lead us away from something she wished to hide — 
perhaps the male, gambling or doing something to be a 
father to his child. I wondered what form ancestor- 
worship took in her mind. It seemed to me that 
ancestor curse-ship would be more appropriate. 

Within ill-lighted hovels sat circles of men and 
women — doing apparently nothing. There was hardly 
any evidence of utensils in which they could prepare 
what meals they get to eat. Yet even here custom was 
so firm that, dirty and bare as the mats and huts might 
be, geta (clogs) were left outside, as in every other house- 
hold in Japan. They lived next to nature, but with 
instincts of cleanliness like those of the cat. 

Eight thousand people here limited the usefulness of 
the word "live." These were in the very pit of the 
slums. Roimd and about and scattered over the four 



> 

O M 
d w 

H > 
O ?0 

ft M 



(/) 



cr 



V5 r^ 



°5 
o o 
■^ o 

W Its 
^ 2 

::: m 
^^ 

r *n 
O 





WHEN THE LEAVES HAVE FALLEN DAIKON (rADISHJ ARE HUNG OUT TO DRY 




THERE STILL IS NO SEWERAGE SYSTEM IN ALL JAPAN 



TOKYO TUNNEL SLUMS 335 

comers of the city will be found similar conditions of 
poverty. Kyoto, strangely enough, presents the worst 
situation in Japan, though in details nothing could be 
worse than that in Shinkawa, Kobe. 

Tokyo slums are not less degraded than those of either 
Kobe or Kyoto, but possess a feature which makes of 
them a source of greater danger. They are situated on 
land periodically washed by the tides. Looking at a 
map of the city, one would notice that the region along 
the bay has a considerable number of watered spaces, 
obviously unreclaimed shoreland. The rest of the 
region, though built upon, is as subject to the tides as the 
shore. There is no sewerage. Consequently, all the 
refuse which gathers, waiting for some official honorable 
cleaning-day to cause its removal, is inundated and 
spread out beneath the foundations of the slum quarters, 
where it festers and rots with time. 

In these slums is a feature unique even for a country 
as profuse in oddities as Japan. It is known as the 
Tunnel Slums, rows of houses, each containing from 
twelve to twenty compartments arranged like a Pullman 
sleeper, standing back to back. Each compartment has 
three mats on which families of from five to six persons 
"dwell." As each mat in Japan measures exactly three 
feet by six, there is absolutely no privacy whatever for 
the individual members of the family, and inasmuch as 
these compartments open into one another, there is none 
between neighbors. At the end of these dark hallways 
are the communal kitchens and the privies. There 
is a space of only eighteen inches between these tunnels, 
and in consequence the light and air are negligible. 

Such, briefly, is the condition obtaining amid the poor 

of Japan. As one of the families among the nations of 

the world, we cannot be indifferent to the conditions 
22 



336 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

there. Infatuated westerners have been too indulgent 
in their praise of Japan, praise frequently as unde- 
served as the statement quoted at the beginning of this 
study. Neither will harsh criticism do, for no people 
in the world are more sensitive than the Japanese. 
Japan needs social workers to go among her people and 
teach them modem methods of national housekeeping. 
Missionaries are too specialized. Japan has nationalized 
railroads and subsidized steamship companies, but 
mention of nationalized hospitals and sewerage is still 
regarded as Utopian. The housing problem is a serious 
one. Japan needs better houses, but the substitution of 
our type for hers would only intensify the evil, for with 
such a change would have to come instruction in usage. 
Japanese in foreign-style houses would soon succumb to 
tuberculosis, a disease to which they are even now a 
prey. In the present chaotic state of the Japanese 
worker's mind and the evils resulting from having bor- 
rowed wholesale western industrialism, Japan needs 
guidance in welfare work, in removing conditions which 
make for cholera, plague, and pestilence, and in the 
general eradication of social ills. 

As I wandered through the filth and squalor which are 
dignified by the word "slum," I thought that Buddha, 
as he revels in the sweetness of non-existence, must 
occasionally experience a pang of disappointment; for, 
after two thousand years of effort, his followers are still 
beset with the same evils as on the day he first went out 
into the world to see for himself. Yet as I emerged 
from that depressing environment I seemed to see the 
cleanliness, orderliness, and healthfulness of the ordinary 
life with wonder and surprise. By contrast, the general 
wretchedness in Japan seemed ideal. 



XXIII 



FIVE HOURS IN PRISON 




LAY that night, snug in my bed, with ^olus 
howling without against the heavy burden of 
cold which had suddenly been thrust upon 
him, trying to imagine what the morning's 
experience would be lilce. I had received 
permission to visit the Kobe prison and was to present 
myself at nine o'clock. I took my time, leisurely pro- 
longed the pleasure of bed under the pretense of studying 
Japanese, had the servant light my oil-heater, bring me 
hot water, prepare a warm breakfast, even warm my 
shoes, which in a Japanese house are treated as though 
something vile. I shivered as the first real blast of one 
of the coldest winds of that winter swept over me at the 
door. Then I ran hastily down the hill toward the 
street-car and made my way inside, a thing which 
only such a cold day could induce me to do. The cold 
notwithstanding, it was as clear a day as could be 
desired. At the other end of Kobe I got into an open 
kuruma to convey me to Kikusui-cho, ni-chome, where 
the kangokusho (penitentiary) is located. Still in good 
spirits, still unable to foresee just what would be my 
experience, I watched the rickshaw-man as he laid 
aside his coat to be able to run the more freely and to 
be more warm, and half wished I myself could run, for 
the cold was nipping at my hands and ears and feet 
unmercifully. We crossed two bridges over the Mina- 
togawa. Pat, pat, pat went the runner's feet, and the 
sound of his bell sent people, huddling within their 



338 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

wraps, scurrying out of the way. "Is not the wind 
enough to evade at one time?" they seemed to protest. 
The rickshaw-man turned to the left, and soon we were 
at the comer of a high brick wall which was as devoid 
of curve or grace as straight lines could possibly be. 
It seemed as though the Japanese had exhausted nearly 
all loftiness of structure in the making of their temples 
and what was left was put into their habitations, so that 
in all the world there was no more freedom of line left 
with which to soften the confines of the wretched. 

A few children and women with babies stood at the 
gate, basking in the sun. As I stepped out of the 
rickshaw one of the wide doors swung open from within 
and I was admitted with a salute and a smile as though 
my coming had been expected. From the office building 
came a Japanese who greeted me cordially and imme- 
diately ushered me into the waiting-room above, where 
I was announced to the governor. A tiny little fellow 
of about ten — the errand boy — brought some tea 
forthwith and the "investigation" began. 

As the sun shone brightly into the office, I half re- 
gretted all this cordiality. I wished I could come un- 
noticed and get some sense of what real prison life is. 
But beggars must not be choosers, and when they are 
treated like princes it were contemptible to complain. 

The institution I had come to inspect is over thirty 
years old — one of the first to have been established 
after the Restoration. At the time of my visit (Novem- 
ber, 1 918) there were thirteen hundred prisoners incar- 
cerated. The governor felt apologetic because of the 
inadequacy of the equipment in the way of buildings, 
and as though to counteract any bad impressions he 
first showed me pictures of the new structure attached 
to the kencho (court-house) and the larger one in Tokyo. 
These looked like model prisons. Then the governor 
himself set out to show me about the prison. 



IRON vs. WOOD 339 

Impressions are dangerous things. One may be either 
unduly elated or unduly severe. But if impressions are 
of real worth, they indicate the general state without 
falling into either of these extremes. My impressions 
were that on the whole the atmosphere of this prison 
and that at Himeji (which I visited subsequently) was 
one of greater leniency than obtains in western jails. 
First of all, wood is the predominant material in use, 
and wood is much more humane than iron. What 
makes a western prison sound so hard is the clanking of 
keys and the sight of iron gates and iron bars. Here, 
though gates were in abundance, they were either of 
wood or of wire, and the locking and unlocking were not 
so noticeable. In a sense, one wonders what children are 
here confined as to be unable to get some way of ripping 
out this wood which obstructs their freedom. Yet the 
governor assured me that to his knowledge but one 
prisoner has escaped, and that some twenty years ago. 
However, that very year a Japanese "Jack the Ripper" 
made his get-away and was for a time the terror of all 
women. 

The prison is divided according to the length of the 
term being served. First we visited the ward for 
juvenile offenders. These are from eighteen to twenty 
years of age. If taken younger than that they are sent 
to the Himeji branch. One little fellow, half frightened 
and half excited at my sudden appearance, crouched in 
the shadows of his cagelike cell. 

All cells are on the open. Long cages made of posts 
four or five inches square, set two inches apart, stand 
within the prison walls. The cell is about twelve feet 
high, its floor about two feet above the ground. The 
posts are strung together by inconspicuous iron rods. 
Boarding about six inches thick separates the cages. 
More recently these cages have been partially inclosed 
by glass sheds. The governor explained that because 



340 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

of the exorbitant price of glass, paper was resorted to on 
the western side. But for this shield, the wind and rain 
and sun could beat unmercifully into the cages. 

From the point of view of light and air, these must 
certainly be more cheerful than stone walls and narrow 
apertures, but from that of comfort on just such a day 
as fate brought me there the airiness was rather un- 
fortunately over-emphasized. It seemed to me, as I 
peeped into these giant cages, that the sun was never so 
benign and never a greater blessing. Had it been a dull, 
rainy morning, the impression I should have carried 
away would have been less commendable. I don't 
know whether I should have had the heart to look inside 
or to wander about even with so honorable a guide and 
one so pleasant and kindly. For it must further be 
remembered that to each prisoner, open as is his cell, 
only one quilt is allotted, though three or more men are 
generally confined in a single cell. For moral and 
other reasons, two prisoners are never left alone, the 
third being counted upon as factor against ''company" 
or collusion. Food is passed in between the posts, and 
there, day after day, the object to be reformed broods 
over his misfortunes, never permitted to stretch his 
legs, except on order or for exercise, always sitting upon 
his knees twirling straw geta strings to comfort the feet 
of his brethren unconfined. About the only occupation 
the authorities can find for them is to twirl these geta 
strings. 

Strange bits of innovation, almost humorous, suggest 
the slow progress prison reform would make were it 
seriously considered. To facilitate the serving of food, 
quarter-inch extensions have been cut into two of the 
pillars of each cell. Owing to the possible danger of a 
break for freedom when washing at the open troughs 
which are fed by the tiniest little baby faucets I have 
ever seen, the governor said he planned to bring the 



AIR vs. COLD 341 

troughs into the narrow passageways which separate 
the cells from their outer sheds. He has had wooden 
latticed sliding-doors placed across the opening which 
admits one to the prisons, an innovation which, it 
seemed to me, would stand about two minutes against 
the pressure of a healthy man. But then that is hardly 
necessary to guard against. Another innovation was 
the waiting-rooms, which looked like a series of American 
telephone booths. In these prisoners have to wait for 
examination. 

The chapel was one of the first places I was taken to. 
Here the prisoners gather at stated times to receive 
instruction from Buddhist priests. A considerable 
library on religion, ethics, and some practical subjects 
is at their disposal, and they also have a special in- 
structor, who at the time looked as though he were 
afraid of being examined. These clericals have abstracts 
made for them of each prisoner's record, which serve 
to guide them in the kind of instruction they should 
dish out. 

A worse life than that of the prisoners is that of the 
guards, who are stationed in open boxes at all the four 
comers of the prison-yard. Though we appeared fully 
a block away, each one saluted the governor with a 
gusto needing no field-glasses to be made noticeable. 

Thus we went from building to building, or rather from 
cell-cage to cage-cell, all virtually open to the cold and 
wind. As we emerged from behind one wing, we were 
met by a guard and half a dozen prisoners. They 
saluted and disappeared round the comer with the wind. 
At another place prisoners were drawing water, and 
their dirty-brown uniforms gave one anything but a 
"grandmotherly feeling of comfort and security" from 
cold. 

We then passed the hospital. Peering in through a 
glass window about the size of a photographic quarter- 



342 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

plate, I saw a man's head, but the body was beneath a 
pile of Juton (quilts). He was reading a Bible. He 
noticed me, but turned his head away as though in 
hiding. He was a white man. I asked the governor 
if he would permit me to speak to this man, who, I 
learned, was an American just sentenced to a year's 
imprisonment for embezzlement. My request was 
granted and we returned. The officer opened the outer 
cell and then unlocked the wooden door of that in which 
the man lay. He greeted me eagerly and asked me 
two favors: one that I never mention his name to any 
one in America, and the other that I send him a mis- 
sionary or a priest. Then he broke into tears. It was 
his first time. He had arrived at Nagasaki, and then, 
** You know what a man will do when under the influence 
of drink," he said. The governor said he would permit 
him to see a priest and to read anything I would send 
him, and we went on. 

Our next turn was into the workshops. These are 
indeed elementary, if as much. The majority of pris- 
oners are at work making geta (clogs) and g^/a-strings. 
The moment we entered the officer in charge emitted a 
yell which brought every one to immediate attention. 
They remained on their knees, heads bowed, and the 
governor saluted. Then the officer stepped before the 
governor and saluted us. We sahited in turn. The 
prisoners all sat in long rows upon round, thick straw 
mats. There was only the bare earth beneath the mats. 

In the other workshops some weaving is done, some 
basket-work, some leather bags manufactured for the 
post-office, and in a small foundry a new kind of 
handcuff, invented by the governor, is made. Con- 
tract labor obtains, but it seems there would hardly be 
enough of it to make it worth the while of any manu- 
facturer. The prison equipment is quite insufficient. 
Japan is still unconscious of the value of human energy, 



PROS AND CONS 343 

and can think of no other way of employing it than by 
keeping these men at work twirling geta-stvings. Again 
and again the interpreter regretted that they had no 
other kind of work for the prisoners to do. 

At one cell the governor made some remark to a 
prisoner which set him bowing so profusely that I asked 
for the reason. He was to be dismissed the following 
day, I was told, having served his term of three years 
and four months. Therefore he was given greater 
freedom, and before him, on a little table, were some 
books from which he was reading. 

There is much more to prison life in Japan than this. 
For instance, in the kitchen there was really something 
modem — an enormous furnace and tremendous iron 
kettles in which the rice is steamed. For the men 
eat. At noon they receive only rice and millet; at 
night there is a little brownish paste and some greens 
besides. 

Though I saw no women about, there is, within the 
same compound, a women's ward. At the time about 
ninety women were imprisoned. No contact with the 
male prisoners is, however, permitted under any circum- 
stances. They do not even see one another. The seg- 
regation of youths is a departure but recently instituted, 
and these, too, are now permitted no intercourse with 
confirmed criminals 

I returned to the outer world with the same feeling of 
amazement at the orderliness of life and at its compara- 
tive cleanliness and sweetness as after my visit to the 
slums. The dreariness and squalor which are found in 
such places in Japan are so much more devoid of sem- 
blance of humanity than anywhere else in the world. 
The poor in the West have little enough to console them ; 
in Japan they seem to show their ribs, metaphorically 
speaking, through their garments. There is such 
utter absence of creature comfort. To a westerner the 



344 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

sight of bare feet in winter is more painful than solitary 
confinement. The portion of rice and the speck of 
pickled vegetable, however much it may please the 
native, seems so much more meager than the loaves of 
bread which seemed rather inviting in the New Zealand 
prisons I visited. A floor, no matter how bare, even 
cold concrete, bespeaks a certain amount of care which, 
in our eyes, goes a good deal toward seeming comfort. 
Take the hospital, for instance. There are tw^o sep- 
arate structures for the sick — one for contagious cases. 
In this a prisoner in an advanced stage of consumption 
lay beneath a mountain of quilts upon a board-bottomed 
bed. The doctor prescribes the number of quilts he 
should be given, and this one had several, but a person 
in such a condition can hardly be expected to keep warm, 
however many covers he be given. Yet there was no 
heat whatever in the room, not even a charcoal brazier. 
None of the wards had heat. The cheerlessness alone 
would kill a man, it seems. To the Japanese, accus- 
tomed to cold houses, this may not appear to be cruel. 
So perhaps the western observer is disqualified for im- 
partial judgment in eastern ways. But there must be 
a standard which is better. 

In truth, standards are already being set in Japan. 
Going from one prison to another gives one a basis of 
measurement. The prison at Himeji, thirty miles from 
Kobe, is a branch of that at Kobe. It is located in the 
open country skirting the town. Its walls have none of 
the shut-in effect of most prisons, for the hills to the rear 
give it a restful appearance of rural freshness. The 
structures are all of wood, but are real cells, not cages. 
Three long buildings running off from a common center, 
like so many spokes, permit the attendant to watch 
them all at once. 

The prison is also more industrialized than that at 
Kobe. Everywhere looms were clattering away on 



HIMEJI PRISON 345 

cotton flannels, knitting-machines making socks — all 
the cheaper grades of machine-work being done on con- 
tract prison labor. Manufacturers pay by piece-work, 
the rates of which vary as follows : cabinet-makers may 
earn 17 cents a day; cotton-flannel workers, 9 cents; 
knitters of cotton stockings, 6 cents; paper-hatmakers, 
3 cents. They make wooden clogs, mats, straw rope, 
spools, sandals, matches, shoes, wicker baskets, and do 
most of the work for the government. In winter they 
work ten hours, and in summer twelve. According to 
the old rule, a portion of the wages was paid to them 
regardless of conduct or skill; now it is labeled ''reward" 
and is given on a basis of both conduct and skill, and a 
portion is put to the credit of the prisoner against his 
leaving. All materials are supplied by the contractors, 
which must be furnished whether the market demands it 
or not. Machinery is also installed by the contractor, 
who is very eager for prison labor. 

Accused convicts under detention, and prisoners 
under confinement or political offenders, need not work. 
Those sentenced without labor can work if they so wish. 
They receive from 40 to 70 per cent of their earnings, 
according to conduct. 

Relatives and friends may visit prisoners once in two 
months. Prisoners may write letters once in two 
months. Those receiving a reward badge for good 
conduct may receive callers and write letters once every 
month. Corporal punishment is not allowed, though 
this is not a guarantee against its infliction, as may be 
judged by some of the revelations made of methods in 
vogue in Korea. The strait-jacket, reduction in quan- 
tity of food, solitary confinement in not completely 
dark cells, are extreme forms of punishment. Under 
hard labor comes carpentry, stone masonry, and breaking 
stone. Prisoners generally build the prisons, which 
nowadays are made of brick. The more recent prisons 



346 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

are built entirely after western models, the Belgian 
taking precedence. The new detention prison attached 
to the court-house in Kobe is quite up-to-date. 

The total number of prisoners accused and sentenced 
in Japan by the end of March, 191 9, was 60,039, showing 
an increase of 609 as compared with the previous month. 
At Himeji, at the time, there were 518 adult prisoners, 
among whom were 76 women. Owing to the increased 
difficulty of earning a necessary wage in face of the 
advance in prices, crime increased. But strikes being 
in the category of crime in Japan, the crowding of 
prisons must be tremendous. When I visited the new 
detention prison in Kobe there were 375 rice-rioters 
awaiting trial. As a consequence, there were as many 
as six and twelve in a cell. The Himeji prison was 
almost full, too. 

As we emerged from inspection, a muffled tread of 
feet was heard and a gang of boys shuffled into view. 
Forty or fifty young offenders in dirty blue uniforms — ■ 
wadded kimonos reaching to the knees — and straw 
sandals on their bare feet, came past in steps anything 
but lightsome and free. They were bound for school. 
No straggling in late in this small world. Yet school 
here doubtless affords the most joyous moments of a 
weary life, for all day long they live according to dis- 
cipline which warps what smoothness their life affords. 
Two hours of the day they attend class within a building 
like an old country schoolhouse. Forty wooden desks 
and benches as rough and ugly as possible were all the 
furniture, and a curtain separating the two classes. 
On one side stood a shriveled little old man who looked 
sorely in need of an education himself; on the other, a 
vigorous old patriarch with long beard and big eye- 
glasses. Both of them proceeded lamely to "educate" 
their charges. The one on our left, wrinkled, hungry- 
looking, talked to them about ethics. Japanese invari- 



DOES MERCY TEMPER JUSTICE? 347 

ably use that word instead of good conduct or behavior. 
They are constantly drilling loyalty, emperor worship, 
into the young, and these fellows sat listening, with not 
a single example of real morality about them. There 
were 118 of them in the prison. They work, drill, go 
to school, drill, and work — and sleep. Physically they 
did not appear to be too robust ; their faces showed that 
their spirit was broken, and according to statistics most 
of them return some time after their release for another 
course. 

I am still in a quandary as to the purpose of a certain 
institution for juvenile criminals supported by a Kyoto 
millionaire. The gentleman readily enough gave me 
what information I asked for — as to the kind of home 
and kinds of criminals he takes in. It has been in 
existence since 19 13 and has seen ninety -five inmates 
come and go after periods of from one night to four 3^ears. 
The ages of these guests likewise vary from ten to forty- 
six years. Whether they are sent there by the court or 
not I could not ascertain. The crimes they committed 
were recorded as follows: theft, 25; embezzlement, 7; 
default, 4 ; disturbance, i ; receiving stolen goods, i ; 
forgery, i; incendiarism, i; petty larceny, 46; prison 
sentence postponed on probation, i ; awaiting court 
order, 9. According to these records, 5 were reformed, 
5 were being reformed, 5 were still kept watch over, 5 
indirectly cared for, 2 were earning money independently, 
4 were turned over to another reformatory, 12 went 
home after receiving traveling expenses, 32 were de- 
livered over to their relatives, 29 escaped, and 2 died. 
The noteworthy thing is that of sending delinquents 
home to their relations. So ingrained is the family 
system that upon the request of parents or relatives a 
third of them were released. Throughout this record 
such notes were made: "Dismissed by instructions of 
his father"; ''Asked to be dismissed"; "Asked to return 



348 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

to uncle's house"; "Elder brothers house, account of 
illness"; ''Went home next day — very dangerous man"; 
"No hope of repentance"; "Father took him back"; 
' ' Brother asked to have him sent back ' ' ; etc. A number 
escaped within a day or so, while many secured positions. 
But this humane way of handling criminals leaves one 
somewhat in doubt. Why bother with them at all? 
No doubt it accounts for much of the crime prevalent in 
the country. 

On this last thought it might be said that the attitude 
of courts to crime in Japan wavers between a certain 
vague indulgence and extreme cruelty. The governor 
of Kobe prison remarked that in America men are sen- 
tenced to terms of more than thirty-five years, while in 
Japan no sentence is for more than twenty — or for life 
imprisonment. Reports of leniency in the case of crim- 
inals who have "repented" are frequent, and confessed 
embezzlers have had their sentences stayed for years, 
virtually defeating the ends sought in having them 
brought to trial, simply on their word of honor. This 
has happened once in the case of a man who stole a 
thousand dollars from a friend of mine in Kobe — a 
foreigner. Partiality where natives are concerned against 
foreigners is not uncommon. 

The severity with which the rice-rioters were treated 
shows to what extremes the judiciary can go, as does, 
for instance, the trials of Korean Christians. Yet ac- 
cused are protected from public scrutiny by allowing 
them to wear wicker baskets over their heads down to 
their shoulders when passing from their cells to the 
court. Bail is rarely granted. A court scene is quaint 
indeed in the eyes of the westerner. Cases are tried 
without juries before three judges, each in a black gown 
and stiff -paper, black-lacquered "overseas" cap, of the 
Shinto variety. The process is simple, the presiding 



AN HONEST JUDGE 349 

judge alone hearing and examining the witnesses and 
the accused, all questions even from lawyers going 
through him to the prisoner. Holding court in camera 
is quite common, especially in cases where the offense 
is political. Considering that in olden days capital 
punishment was usually the reward for the simplest 
crime, one would feel rather uneasy about putting one- 
self in the hands of three individuals with such prec- 
edents to guide them. Until the coming of the for- 
eigners and during the Tokugawa period the laws were 
not codified, but reliance was placed on the humanity 
of the judges. Since, the judicial system has been 
modeled after the German system. Japan only then 
secured recognition from the world as an equal, and 
extraterritoriality was abolished. 

An interesting story was recently published in The 
Japan Chronicle (Kobe, January i, 1919), a translation 
from the Gokyo-Den by Ito Chiyu, a popular story-teller 
from Tokyo. It gives vivid details of the attack, by 
a fanatic policeman in 1891, on Nicholas I, when as the 
young Czarevitch he was touring Japan. He was at 
Otsu, on Lake Biwa, near Kyoto. The policeman had 
seen the yoimg Czarevitch put his foot upon the founda- 
tion of a monument raised to commemorate the spot 
from which the Meiji Tenno, Emperor of Japan, had 
once gazed across the lake. When, a little later, the 
young monarch passed him, the policeman pounced 
upon him with his sword and was only prevented 
from killing him by his two rickshaw-men pullers. 
Fearing the wrath of the Czar, the whole of Japanese 
officialdom was ready to have the policeman executed 
with only the semblance of a trial. The Emperor him- 
self went down to Kyoto to call upon the heir to the 
Russian throne, and later gave a veiled hint to the chief 
justice that execution was to be certain. But that one 
man, and that one only, remained obdurate. Judge 



350 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Kojima, president of the Supreme Court, refused to 
have the judiciary tampered with by oligarchs or 
politicians. He even disregarded the wish of the Em- 
peror. His fellow- judges were ready to bow the knee 
before the Ministers of State. But he refused. It 
ended, after a trial, in a fist -fight between one of the 
Ministers, Saigo, and Judge Kojima, both rolling on 
the floor of the Kyoto railway station. But Japan's 
judiciary was saved from political dictation. 

Yet Japan's judicial system, according to foreign 
lawyers and editors who have made a study of it, has 
made little progress from the point of view of modem 
law and procedure. 




^YITH ALL ITS MODERNISM, JAPAN STILL HAS TIME FOR SUCH SLOW METHODS 



^^^^^pHHHHIfe^ t 


B^^ 




1 -^.-^--^^ . ^ 


1 ^m 



AND THERE ARE MEN ENOUGH TO GIVE THEIR LIVES TO SUCH TASKS 




XXIV 

CONFLICTING SOCIAL FORCES — I 

Labor Rises 

I ERE one to glance down a complete index 
to daily incidents in Japan, it would soon 
be evident that Japanese are as given to 
acts of virtue or violence as any other race. 
From A to Z it would read like a cata- 
logue of incidents found anywhere else in the world 
— forgery, scandal, suicide, fires, strikes, marriages, 
divorces, and so on. The foreigner is apt to forget that 
when the Japanese yawns he puts his hand before his 
mouth; that when he goes visiting he puts on his best 
top-skirt; that he quarrels when he is crossed and 
smiles when he is pleased. We complain about the lack 
of Americanization on the part of the Japanese in 
America, while our own people residing in Asia seek by 
foreign schools to raise as great a wall between the East 
and the West by the preservation of their own customs 
and ideals. Socially, the Japanese are perhaps more 
clannish, but that is because they are more simple. 
They have been held for nearly three hundred years in 
fear and suspicion of one another by the most peculiar 
system of government ever devised. In dealing with 
the nation, no matter what the phase considered, this 
historical fact must not be lost sight of. 

The difficulties standing in the way of a solution of the 
question of immigration, for instance, are admitted to 

2o 



352 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

be economic more than social. But to one who has 
resided in Japan any length of time the racial factor is 
found to be as pressing. Japan's racial traits made for 
her isolation, and later for her emergence. And to- 
day, in the evidence of a bettering of her social condi- 
tions, one can see the possibilities of Japan coming 
abreast of other nations politically. 

The fame of Japan's material progress has been widely 
advertised and considerably exaggerated. Acquaintance 
with conditions in Kobe and Osaka soon proves this. 
Kobe in the last two years alone absorbed the greater 
part of Japan's commercial growth. So with a few 
industries which have marked time with enterprise 
elsewhere. The drift is toward the cities. So rapid has 
this movement been that large areas in and about them 
until recently garden patches have become sites for 
homes. But the conditions have in no case been ap- 
proximated by any remarkable increase in efficiency. 
As soon as the trams were taken over by the munici- 
palities, the fares were raised and their efficiency fell. 
The crowding is tremendous, and to relieve the cars 
they removed half the seats. Three or four cars run 
close together, then you wait twenty minutes. They 
break down fairly regularly. And for a city of half a 
million and over there are only seventy cars. But 
fares are constantly increased to where they have be- 
come two cents a ride. On the railroads the rates have 
gone up 40 per cent. Outward changes there have been 
many, but fundamentals remain little modified. 

Politically the change in Japan has been less rapid. 
Democracy is in the making. Imperialism may sup- 
press it for a time, but Japan is undergoing internal 
change as surely as it has external. Its rulers cannot 
forever stave off mutation. Already the number of 
strikes and riots is alarming the government. They 
are almost insignificant compared with those of Europe 



A DELUGE OF STRIKES 353 

and America, but they make up for lack of numbers of 
laborers involved by their frequency. 

There are many causes for the deluge of strikes which 
has flooded Japan in the last three years. First of all 
was war prosperity with the consequent drain upon the 
rural population by industrial recruiting and enormous 
increase in wealth of a certain few individuals in favored 
districts. Envy of the riches suddenly acquired by 
steamship men, manufacturers, and exporters, desig- 
nated narikin. (mushroom millionaires), and the absence, 
on the part of the government, of any experience or 
inclination for handling the situation, added to the 
predicament. 

Japanese labor, for its own part, does not as yet know 
definitely what it is after. It demands bonuses and 
parties instead of a constructive share in industrial 
management. Consequently, without the shadow of a 
program, it is often as violent as it is innocent. Flare- 
ups have always been ephemeral. When a riot occurs, 
the police and soldiers are immediately called out to 
quell it. In Japan, the police take it upon themselves 
to act as mediators, by no means a bad proposition, for 
they occasionally hit upon admirable compromises. 
But even Japanese loyalty has its bounds, and both 
police and troops have been met with defiance. 

The trouble is not always with either the police or 
employers. At one place the workers objected to cer- 
tain bad characters among themselves. They wanted 
them removed from their midst. They also complained 
that the company's doctors were not kind in their 
treatment of them. The physicians must have insisted 
on something akin to scientific practice or isolation of 
contagious cases, or otherwise interfered with the super- 
stitions of the people. At a certain colliery the workers 
of No. I shaft destroyed shaft No. 2, and forthwith the 
workers of No. 2 destroyed No. i shaft in revenge. At 



354 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

a copper-mine in Niigata Prefecture the miners raided 
the stores and smashed things, because they claimed 
the headman of the stores was selHng them rotten rice. 
A ship was to be launched and the owners thought they 
would have a little spree in celebration. The workers 
were, of course, not included. They complained that 
in view of their straitened circumstances it was not 
nice of the owners to display their profits. The garden- 
party was indefinitely postponed, and the police were 
called in to keep the workers under control. At the 
christening of another vessel a number of coolies came 
upon the scene with daggers and distributed their 
thrusts indiscriminately among workers and celebrants. 

One hundred and fifty girls struck because the fore- 
man had distributed the New Year bonus, declared upon 
the amalgamation of two large weaving-mills, with par- 
tiality. They gathered in the public parks to discuss 
their grievances and the steps they should take to protect 
their interests. A similar affair occurred at a mill 
employing twelve hundred girls. They claimed that the 
foreman had taken too much of the bonus to himself, and, 
besides, had favored the girls from another province. 
Workers in an electric concern resumed work only on 
condition that the mediators collect an additional bonus 
of a hundred thousand yen for distribution among the 
former employees of the company. An Osaka iron- 
works forbade sa/?^-drinking while at the works and 
precipitated a strike by searching the men and looking 
into their little aluminum lunch-boxes (measuring about 
four by six inches by one inch) . 

In most of the cases the grievance is insufficient pay. 
The cost of living shot up by leaps and bounds during 
the war, but not so the wages. In many cases the em- 
ployers pleaded they had just given a lo or 20 per cent 
increase, but the men demanded another 30 or 40 per 
cent. All around them the laborers saw fabulous ac- 



CAUSES OF STRIKES 355 

cumulations of wealth which they felt they had a right 
to share. Revelations were made in the Diet of prof- 
iteering in coal to the effect that coal was being sold 
for $8.50 a ton instead of $3.50. Even at the latter 
price the operatives would have realized a 40-per-cent 
profit. During one given period the sale was from four 
to five million tons. The Kyushu scandals resulted. 

In various regions strikes have occurred because the 
mine operators were rice-profiteers. Recently there 
was a strike in Hyogo Prefecture copper-mine, because 
the operators felt that inasmuch as copper was going 
down in price they were justified in raising the price of 
the rice they sell to the mining community, though the 
men had examples of cheaper rice all around them. 

Japanese are about as patient as any to be found 
anywhere, but even in Japan there is a last-straw pos- 
sibility. Some miners in a gold district made their 
appeal for increased wages, and waited. Then they 
lost patience and resorted to cudgels and shovels. 
They used these strange weapons upon the residences of 
the ofBcials. 

Sometimes the men have well-defined grievances. 
For instance, the employees of the Osaka Ironworks pre- 
sented the following demands to their firm: (i) improve- 
ment of structural defects considered dangerous in their 
present condition; (2) relief for the workers and their 
families when injured or killed while at work; (3) short- 
ening of working-hours; and (4) distinction between 
workers on piece-work and those in regular employ, the 
former to be free from any restrictions regarding meal- 
times and hours to begin work. The men won out in 
the first two demands, but not in the others; however, 
the company gave way in its opposition to the presence 
of the workers' wives who generally bring lunch to the 
men. There was also a strike of sixteen hundred men 
at a colliery because, after an explosion had occurred, 



356 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

killing a dozen men, it was rumored that the allowances 
given the bereaved families were too small. At the 
time of the accident the management had announced 
an increase of wages, but after the excitement subsided 
the promise was not fulfilled. Hence the raid on offices 
and destruction of furniture. 

Five hundred were dismissed from one zinc-mine 
shortly after the armistice. This caused considerable 
disquietude, but it was announced that twenty thousand 
yen would be distributed among them, and the trouble 
abated. In one case five hundred shipwrights were 
dismissed when the company went into liquidation 
without paying them their wages, causing a riot. In 
this case, to the credit of the police, their intervention 
on behalf of the workers secured justice. Like the cases 
of students striking because of dissatisfaction with 
some of the instructors, so five hundred workmen went 
on strike at the Bingo dockyards because they didn't 
like the new directors. The police were immediately 
sent "to induce" the strikers to resume work. 

Most of the strikes have been for increase of wages to 
meet the increased cost of living, the demands ranging 
from 20 to 30 per cent. Some mechanics in a ship- 
yard were earning only 90 cents a day and asked for 
an increase of 35 cents. However, it must not be 
thought that the workers, disorganized as they are, 
are altogether lacking in discipline and orderliness. 
The fact is that their resentment in the majority of cases 
is due to disappointment. They regarded their em- 
ployers with the loyalty of serfs and found them narikin 
and industrial overlords. 

Here in America strikes are usually attributed to 
the agitation of foreigners, but in Japan there is no 
foreign element upon whom any blame can be placed. 
There have been two or three cases of Chinese painters 
going out on strike against their exploiting Chinese 



INDUSTRIES AFFECTED 357 

contractors, or Japanese and Korean laborers coming 
into collision. But Japan does not encourage immi- 
gration from the overpopulated neighbor empire, and 
has even deported several groups. So that she has 
no such situation to face, except perhaps in that all 
white foreigners in Japan set the natives a bad example 
— ^for invariably a foreign clerk in an office receives 
three and four times as much pay for the same work 
as does a native. 

Strikes have occurred among the steel- workers, glass- 
workers, porcelain- workers, masons, spinners, and weav- 
ers, artificial-silk factory- workers, and among the em- 
ployees of most of the industrial enterprises. Now 
the strike spirit has permeated the publishing world. 
Recently all the leading Tokyo papers had to suspend 
publication. Not a paper was published from August 
2d to August 7th. But so far government under- 
takings have not been affected very seriously. There 
have been no strikes on the railways or steamers (these 
utilities being owned or subsidized by the government), 
because generally the government makes up in medals 
and badges for lack of pay. Such submission is primarily 
based on the deep-rooted fear of being regarded as dis- 
loyal to the Emperor. Strikes will take place on the 
city municipalized street-cars, but not on the railways. 
At the railway workshops at Takatori, near Kobe, the 
authorities got wind of disaffection, and immediately 
offered to divide the profits resulting from any increased 
efficiency of the workers. This settled the matter for a 
time. The last report has it that they again demanded 
increases. Upon denial, the workers attacked the shops 
with stones. Over a third of the men left their jobs 
entirely. 

Yet of all the underpaid workers in Japan, those 
employed by the government are the most wretched. 
A man in charge of a level-crossing on the railway was 



358 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

imprisoned for eight months. Because of his neglect 
three persons were killed and several injured. Yet one 
of the blotches on the whole government railway system 
is the type of person placed to protect the public. 
Decrepit old men and women who can barely see and 
must surely be hard of hearing, the sight of whom makes 
one want to give them a square meal, stand with dirty 
rags for signals, and lower the guard rails. While suc- 
cessful business enterprises were luring ''English-speak- 
ing" post-office clerks away by offering $30 and $50 a 
month, the government allowed its post-offices to fall 
into a shameful state of disorganization by paying as 
low as $6 a month in wages. In Kobe the postmaster 
advertised for men at $9 a month and got five applica- 
tions. At Osaka seven hundred telegraph operators had 
been working without holiday, owing to the increase in 
the number of telegrams. Two hundred and eighty quit 
work. The wages ranged from 23 to 45 cents a day, 
with a maximum wage of $20 a month and a minimum 
of $12.50. The work was so hard — the telegrams in- 
creased from 120 to 600 and 700 per man per day — 
that within one month seven of them died of overwork. 
The authorities denied that a strike had occurred, but 
admitted that 130 were away on "account of illness." 
They finally reduced the hours from nine and a half to 
eight per day. 

The government is by no means quite free from indus- 
trial difficulties. The strike habit is growing. The 
Department of Communications has felt the rumbling 
of the coming change. In reorganizing its various de- 
partments, it appointed some young experts to certain 
important positions and thus placed them over men 
longer in the service and higher in official rank. As a 
consequence there was much rumor and considerable 
consternation about a threatened strike. The police 
didn't intervene here, as they do with ordinary mortals, 



TO STRIKE IS UNLAWFUL 359 

and the matter was smoothed over. The police have 
grievances of their own. They are the former samurai 
of Japan, who ** never" gave thought to money. At 
Shidzuoka, 118 miles southwest of Tokyo, a few po- 
licemen got together in their police-office chambers 
and lamented with one another over their hard lot and 
the failure of the government to raise their wages from 
$9 a month to something nearer a full rice-bowl. 
Naturally, being well disciplined, they permitted this 
gentle zephyr of revolt to blow across the already 
somewhat overheated brows of the officials, and as a 
consequence were dissuaded from disgracing their 
country, so famed for loyalty. 

To strike is still unlawful in Japan. Consequently, 
discontent generally ends in violence, seldom, if ever, 
evolving any constructive reform or benefit other than 
a small increase in pay or bonus. But recently the 
government, according to Mr. Tokonami, the Home 
Minister, has "deemed it a wise policy to leave things 
to take their own course without definitely encouraging 
the formation of unions. Under the laws now in force 
a labor union is neither prohibited nor recognized. It 
is not, therefore, absolutely impossible for such an or- 
ganization to be brought into existence. . . . The gov- 
ernment's attitude must not be construed, however, as 
unduly indifferent to the labor question. It is, needless 
to say, ready to give attention to the cultivation of har- 
monious relations between capital and labor. As 
foreign examples clearly indicated, the development of 
labor unions was due to the advancement and progress 
of the working-people themselves rather than to the 
promulgation of laws governing them." 

On February nth the director of the Police Bureau 
in the Home Department published a statement to the 
effect that inasmuch as Japan never had any law pro- 
hibiting the formation of labor unions, there was, there- 



36o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

fore, none necessary for their regulation. The point he 
raised was that Article 17 of the Police Regulations is 
often misconstrued as being an obstacle against unions. 
If, said the director, ''frequent recourse to strikes is the 
only way to secure the development of labor unions that 
police regulation may well be regarded in that light, 
because in Clause 2 of the said article enticement and 
instigation to strike are prohibited." Superficially this 
may sound extremely humane, but in a country but half 
a century out of feudalism a regulation so loosely con- 
structed is a greater menace to the people than a definite 
prohibition. The attitude of the authorities to such 
questions has taken a marked change, however, since 
the defeat of Germany. 

The Yuaikai is a small benevolent, friendly society 
with some forty thousand members. It has been in 
existence for several years. Its president is Mr. Suzuki 
Bunji, a man well known to labor men in America and 
Europe. The Yuaikai has been agitating for the aboli- 
tion of Article 17. As a result, a public meeting was 
held on April 20th last, at the Central Public Hall in 
Osaka, to discuss the inauguration of the Kwansai Rodo 
Domeikai (Labor Union of the Kwansai district). The 
feature of the new organization is that all the officials 
are elected from among the workmen of the various 
factories. Some fifteen hundred members from Kobe, 
Kyoto, and Osaka were present at the meeting and the 
proceedings were carried on in an orderly manner. 
There are numerous minor organizations; many sprang 
into existence lately, but they changed in motive as 
readily as they appeared. One which gave much 
promise was the Nippon Rodo Kumiai (Japan Labor 
Union) with about two thousand members from about 
forty factories. But it has gone the way of most things 
in Japan — succumbed to officialism. 

When the question of racial discrimination was de- 



THE RICE RIOTS 361 

bated at the Peace Conference and Mr. Gompers pressed 
the Japanese to better their labor standards, they argued 
that labor conditions in Japan are different from what 
they are in the West. What they really meant was 
that the feudalistic spirit is not yet dead in Japan, and 
that as long as an employer acts the benevolent lord to 
his men they will remain loyal to him. 

I was in Tokyo at the time of the rice riots. The 
streets were crowded with silent people. The police 
dashed across the length of the city in motor-cars, 
quelling an outbreak here and another there. The 
imperial troops from the palace sounded their bugle and 
their tread through Hibiya Park. But in the streets all 
was dark and silent. The riots had broken out from 
one end of Japan to the other. The price of rice had 
been rising steadily for some months. The people every- 
where had watched the shrinking of their rather unex- 
pected earnings with grave apprehension. What seemed 
like an hour of prosperity suddenly turned out to be a 
day of want. Even the impossible, but indispensable, 
daikon (a kind of radish) had gone up from a cent and 
a half to seven and a half cents apiece, while the general 
cost of living had doubled. 

The cause of the riots lies clearly enough in Japan's 
rigid nationalism. The consequences which may always 
be expected to result from monarchy and oligarchy are 
unexpected revolution coming at toppling speed. In a 
democratic country revolution could not be precipitate. 
There is altogether too much flexibility in its political 
structure. Revolution would have to come in cycles 
and waves of storminess. But in Japan, when anything 
comes it comes suddenly and universally, as in Russia, 
and as in the rice riots. Japan, when it examined the 
effects of that devastating storm, thought clearly for a 
moment, and then it shuddered. 

It seemed that a flush of real life had come over 



362 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

Japan. It seemed that the government would reaHze 
that the riots had a cause and that the cure was in 
loosening up the ties that bind the masses. But there 
was only talk of need of guidance. Bureaucracy, feeling 
itself threatened, clutched at its clumsy stick in anxiety. 
This menacing has just the opposite effect — it drives the 
people into mass-organization for self -protection. "The 
government does not allow strikes on a large scale," said 
a Japanese. So, of course, it must content itself with 
riots. Once I overheard a Tokyo official, who was 
asked how it was that postal employees, getting only 
$9 a month, got along and why they didn't strike, say, 
innocently and sincerely, "We must be loyal to our 
Emperor." A Japanese army officer may have a family 
of four, yet he has to live on $21 a month, which, ac- 
cording to the Japan Advertiser^ he spends as follows: 

For rice, fuel, shoyu and milk Yen 

722 2.50 13-50 

Side dishes 4.00 

Rent 11.00 

Wages for the nurse 2.00 

Income tax 1.50 

Husband's private expenses 3.00 

Wife's " " 1.50 

Social " 1.50 

Education of children i.oo 

Emergency expenses i.oo 

Saving 2.00 42.00 



Teachers in 191 8 received $6 to $60 a month, though 
the vast majority earned no more than $15. The gov- 
ernment decided to grant a subsidy of about $150,000, 
so that when all divisions were made it would change 
the salaries to maximums of from $55 to $65. Police- 
men had been receiving as much as $6 a month. The 
most humiliating conditions in public service are to be 
found among these professionals. A school-teacher 



REMNANTS OF FEUDALISM 363 

may not earn more than $50 a month, but if he is al- 
lowed to call himself professor and wear a frock-coat, no 
matter how green with age, he is generally content. 

Koreans by the thousands are working in Japan for 
from twenty-five to ten cents a day, and a very wise 
investigator, in making comparisons between Japanese 
and Korean laborers, observed that the Koreans did 
not save anything, whereas the assumption was that 
the Japanese did. Not a very great recommendation 
that. 

The seamen through the Yuaikai made demand for a 
50-per-cent increase on the ground that foreign seamen 
received from five to seven times the wages they did. 

Of course, conditions are changing and salaries are 
rising, but that is because the professionals are leaving 
their professions and going into business where they 
may receive from $50 to $75 a month, and bonuses be- 
sides. Even servant-girls are demanding leisure and 
better pay. 

The factories are drawing people out of their feudal 
helplessness, though the conditions in the factories are 
shocking enough. There is a shortage of labor even 
here where there are many more people than industry 
can provide for. The naval arsenal at Kure was short 
of skilled shipwrights and had to borrow five hundred 
to a thousand men from the Kawasaki people in Kobe. 
Korean labor offers Japan a solution, but this creates the 
same situation in Japan as Oriental labor does in Cali- 
fornia. However, this loosening up of the system is the 
most healthful sign of things in Japan, notwithstanding 
that it is bringing in its wake a series of disquieting con- 
ditions. Figures don't tell anything. One need only 
look about him on the streets of Japan, one need only 
walk down Minatogawa, the theater street of Kobe, 
after the Kawasaki dockyard laborers turn home from 
their shifts — to see that Japan is undergoing rapid 



364 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

industrialization. These very laborers have since gone 
on strike with the rest. 

Though organization is prohibited the workers, co- 
operation is not unknown in Japan. At the Kobe 
Higher Commercial School there is a small co-operative 
book-store in which almost all the needs of school life, 
and even clothing and such things, are bought and sold 
on a co-operative basis. The amount of money students 
usually have to spend is so low that, were they not to 
find some such means of decreasing their cost of living 
it would be impossible for them to attend school at all. 
The Civil Service Supply Association and the army and 
navy stores are co-operative undertakings meant to 
offset the wretched pay officials submit to for the sake 
of prestige. 




XXV 

CONFLICTING SOCIAL FORCES — II 

Bureaucracy Acts 

'0 great nation has gone in so completely 
for government ownership of many of the 
big public utilities, the railroads, tele- 
graphs, post-office, and even the sub- 
sidizing of steamship companies, as has 
Japan. Of course, with the reorganization of the 
government of the country, which up to 1878 had not 
only been feudalistic but paternalistic, it was a simple 
matter to think in terms of public ownership. Every- 
thing belongs to the Emperor, was the thought. And 
though the right of the individual to private property 
was guaranteed by the Constitution, it was not far from 
the national mental attitude toward property in the 
Tokugawa period (1600 to 1868) to the running of the 
railroads by the government in the Meiji era (1868 to 
1 91 2). Furthermore, had not the government under- 
taken these several industries there would have been 
none in Japan financially able to do so. 

The government tussled with the problem of the high 
cost of living last year in the same fatherly way. Speak- 
ing in the Diet, an M.P. said: ''Unless some radical 
methods are devised for the regulation of prices at the 
present juncture, it is to be feared that some very serious 
results will be produced to society in future. No sooner 
does the government take steps to regulate them than 



366 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

they go down, but the instant the government relaxes 
its efforts in this direction they go up. The question is, 
which must receive more serious attention: the uneasi- 
ness of a small batch of speculators or that felt by 
50,000,000 people? The prices of provisions and daily 
necessaries ruling in London are far more moderate than 
those quoted in Tokyo." But speculation continued, 
nor were members of the House of Peers themselves 
above profiteering. 

The consumer was at the mercy of the intermediary. 
Led to a very great extent by the agitation set going 
by the foreign residents, various cities began to consider 
the establishing of public markets. Osaka established 
ten at a cost of about $150,000. The Hyogo (Kobe) 
Agricultural Association set up a market, and so great 
was the rush the first day that the Red Cross had to 
come on the scene with a special tent to give aid to those 
who could not stand the strain. Within forty minutes 
of opening everything was sold out. And later the Kobe 
Chamber of Commerce set itself on record as in favor of 
permanent markets. It must be remembered that this 
is as revolutionary a step in the life of Japanese as rail- 
roads or airplanes, for the home life and house condi- 
tions of Japan have heretofore made it imperative that 
venders bring their products to every door. No home 
is safe with the housewife gone to market. 

Further to find some solution to the problem of 
poverty, the Osaka municipal authorities established 
cheap eating-houses where they served what were re- 
garded as fairly substantial meals for ten sen. Kobe 
also built a model communal kitchen back of the recrea- 
tion-grounds, which, at its inception, at least, was vastly 
cleaner than the so-called restaurants all over town. 

Where there is lack of co-operation or organization 
during a period of great change and development, riot 
and scandal are unavoidable. And scandal enough in 



C^ *^^- *jii 


^i^a? 


^^"'^^•■■■i^^^ ' ** "JhAlflM^OD*^^ 


2^2^ 




"^i^ 


P 










W ■■'^^'^^■iBJ 



WHILE THIS PUMP PUMPS THE FIRE BURNS 





BUT THIS INSTRUMENT MIGHT SCARE 
IT TO DEATH 



THIS WAS LEFT OF PART OF YOKOHAMA 
AFTER THE FIRE 



SCANDAL 367 

business and government circles there has been in Japan 
these last few years. Hardly a day or week went by 
without a report of a fresh scandal or an addition to 
reports of old ones. 

The president of the Wakamatsu State Steel Works 
in Kyushu, a government concern, committed suicide 
because he was being drilled too severely on the matter 
of a contract for 30,000 tons of steel a year, which was 
to have been delivered to the Tokai Goyo Kaisha for ten 
years. The contract had been made before the boom in 
steel, but the government wanted to know why the 
president insisted on living up to the agreement of sup- 
plying steel at a low rate when it could not be purchased 
at a premium elsewhere. An endless chain of corruption 
followed, with 117 arrests, 6 suicides, and i murder. 
High dignitaries were involved, even an ex-priest, who, 
it is said, gained a reward of 100,000 yen in the deal. 
Besides the irregularities that went on in these steel- 
works, there was a case of 10,000,000 yen graft in 
steamer charter. There were arrests for bribery in 
which big shipowners were involved (not to mention 
the geisha, who were also searched). Railroad officials 
were arrested and sentenced, or their sentences stayed, 
for receiving bribes. The giving and receiving of bribes 
in sums as big as 100,000 yen are little less common in 
Japan than tipping. The Kobe City Assembly was en- 
tangled in a real-estate scandal. The mayor of Kyoto 
went to prison because of an election scandal and his 
connection with the Kyoto Electric Light Company 
affair. In Nagoya 320,000 yen disappeared from the 
Prefectural Bank, resulting in another scandal. There 
were still other scandals involving schools, telephones, 
waterworks, the patent bureau, jails, and the disap- 
pearance of a bank director — and out of 477 factories 
investigated in Osaka, 315 were violating the factory 

laws. 
24 



368 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

During the war theft, purse-snatching, stealing of 
cargo, Hfting of drains from the street gutters to sell 
them as iron junk (even a Shinto priest was caught 
shoplifting), pickpocketing by children and grown-ups, 
burglarizing, stealing clothing from homes (especially 
foreign clothes, which until recently were considered a 
white elephant among native thieves because the natives 
didn't wear them so much and the thief could therefore 
be more easily detected) , breaking into houses and using 
daggers — ^no neighbor would think of coming to the 
rescue — ^were common. Though I never felt in the 
slightest degree uneasy, day or night, anywhere and 
everywhere in the Empire, still considerable misgiving 
was felt because of the sudden increase in crime which 
followed in the wake of the war prosperity and war 
poverty. But with the salaries of members of parlia- 
ment only a thousand dollars a year, and only 2 per 
cent of the population having an income of a thousand 
dollars a year, bribery and its kindred scandals are 
inevitable. 

Scandal in Japanese industrial life is only one phase of 
the present chaos. Another is that vast number of 
cases of breach of contract which torment the foreigner 
in the East. Japanese business morality, from the 
western point of view, is hard to get at. The matches 
which won't light, the shirts which won't button be- 
cause the buttons have been pasted on to them instead 
of sewed, the shirts without sleeves, the brushes with 
bristles shorter than ordered, the failure to fill orders 
for socks because another has given a higher offer and, 
though coming late, gets them first — these and any num- 
ber of other cases place the standard of Japanese business 
ethics upon a pretty low plane. True that foreigners 
have often enough earned this, and, as was shown at the 
time of the signing of the armistice, themselves acted in 
as culpable a manner. But this is not a book on the 



DONATING UNDER DURESS 369 

world, only on Japan. And in Japan — ^whether it be 
the Oriental twist to a bargain or out and out dis- 
honesty — morality is secondary to success. However, 
credit is due in other ways. Besides the spirit of com- 
mercial life being better, less harsh, less exacting, more 
trusting — as, for instance, Japanese dealers will receive 
checks from strangers even when the stranger says he is 
leaving port in a few days, as did one dealer from me — 
and when one deals with the large firms, such as the 
Sumutomo, one can be pretty certain that fair dealing 
will be the guiding principle. 

Aside from the wide display of charities distributed 
Heaven knows where, little or nothing is done for Japan's 
poor, and much to make the moderately poor more so 
by way of industrialism. Three years ago it was the 
boast of Japanese that their "peculiar" system made 
strikes impossible, because the relations of capitalists and 
laborers were based on bushido and loyalty. The family 
system in factories, wherein the idea of kindness alias 
charity is the key-note, not independence and vigor, still 
obtains. This charitableness extends beyond a little, 
but emphasizes the state of affairs, as when an Osaka 
narikin, who had made vast riches during the war, 
donated half a million yen for the establishment of a 
free hospital, not for paupers, but for the salaried folk, 
who very often, when they become ill, are in a worse 
situation than even the very poor laborers. 

Donating under duress would be an excellent title for 
a study of the charities of many of the nankin. The 
rice riots have shaken their faith in wealth as a source of 
happiness, though Ebisu, the Japanese little god of luck, 
has been very active these days. When the Suzuki 
and other buildings were destroyed in the riots, the 
timid among the profiteers at once began to dispose of 
part of their gains. They were ready to relinquish these 
in the way of bonuses and bribery upon the first bit of 



370 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

pressure from beneath. On the other hand, some big 
firms have taken an interest in their workers voluntarily. 
The Mitsubishi Company contributed a million yen for 
the comfort and amusement of the workers employed 
at its shipbuilding yards at Nagasaki and Kobe. One 
of the first uses to which this million was placed was a 
theater-party, lasting seven days, at the biggest Kobe 
theater, to which the 15,000 workers and their families 
were invited. Some of the big firms are establishing 
athletic clubs, putting up buildings for rowing clubs and 
dormitories for their employees. Some are founding 
institutions. There is something obviously wrong about 
labor in a condition requiring a charity in the form of a 
week's outing at a theater. Yet that which would go 
farthest toward the elimination of just this kind of 
charity is the very thing which is not permitted in 
Japan. To make men and their families feel emotion- 
ally mortgaged is apparently considered good; to allow 
them to learn that their common difficulties can be 
met by common action is regarded as disloyalty. 

Turning our consideration to the rich man — we find 
that as though it were not enough to have his house and 
goods threatened by the rising tide of democracy, he 
has had to face wordy admonitions from the government 
and press. They began advising the narikin how they 
could dispose of their money — by supporting the govern- 
ment's airplane construction fund, for instance, as did 
one narikin by a contribution of a million yen, by 
building public roads, and in other ways. Ministers in 
general are extremely solicitous of the welfare of the 
country, as was Baron Goto, the Minister of Agriculture 
and Commerce, when he called a conference of all the 
governors of the Ken of the Empire and spoke in soft 
and appealing terms, showing how bad it is for men to 
speculate, how unjust, how they who hitherto had 
wandered from the paths of imperial righteousness should 



DISGRACED 371 

wander back again. The Mitsui Bussan Kaisha made 
about $20,000,000 war profits in 191 7; yet when a war- 
profits tax was proposed, the narikin threatened to stop 
their charities in the event of its being imposed. 

More than most people, the Japanese have many deep- 
rooted prejudices, which cannot be shaken even in the 
face of serious consequences. The government tried to 
introduce foreign rice, but it was received scornfully. A 
mixture of rice and wheat is the latest dietetic innova- 
tion. Potatoes have been put forth as a substitute, but 
in this, too, the fame of the Japanese for loyalty is waning 
— ^they balked. 

The Terauchi administration, then in power, sold 
cheap rice and discussed the prohibition of the use of 
rice in brewing sake. Speculators were made examples 
of, but not really punished. The government attempted 
to handle the purchase and transportation of rice. It 
set aside riceless days. It opened public markets for the 
sale of cheap rice. These markets were patronized by 
long queues of poor. Tokyo put $20,000 a day into 
cheap rice. But it seemed of no avail. The Terauchi 
Cabinet, regarded by the masses and part of the press 
as indolent, stupid, and weak, was unmercifully severe 
toward the rioters. In dealing with the question, more 
socialists were arrested than profiteers, the eta were 
blamed even more, and public morality was despaired 
of. But the administration could not save itself. 
Shortly afterward it fell, and was replaced by the Hara 
Cabinet, now in control. But, truth to tell, Japan's 
population, increasing by 800,000 a year, is fast out- 
growing its ability to feed itself. Its resources are 
limited and industrialization — ^which alone can save it — is 
seriously hampered — hampered by nature and by the 
limitations of an oligarchy and the short-sighted military 
and naval clans who run this Oriental world. With the 
regions of the Hokkaido (the island north of Yezo) still 



372 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

practically untouched, the claim of overpopulation falls 
to the ground. Militarism has no plan except expan- 
sion. Industrialization, properly handled, is the cure. 

Voicing the spirit of the rising, though still faintly 
heard, protest against bureaucracy, Mr. Yukio Ozaki, 
one of the oldest members of the Diet and the idol of the 
people, says that, though no actor can hope to hold an 
audience for longer than two months in the same place, 
"the bureaucrats in their slipshod manner have held on 
against the interest of the people for fifty years. No 
wonder the people have become thoroughly sick of them. 
That the overthrow of militarism in Germany is the 
result of the present war may be regarded as a foregone 
conclusion, yet the militarists of Japan want to tread 
in the footsteps of the German militarists. They do 
not understand freedom of the subject and the rights of 
the workers, and try to keep them in subjection by force." 
Yet when Mr. Ozaki left Japan he said that he would 
start a labor party, but that laborers in Japan were not 
sufficiently trained and independent to support one. 

Viscount Kato, leader of the Kenseikai, the largest 
party in Japan, now admits that labor problems must be 
faced courageously. The present Ministry pretends to be 
sympathetic to unions, but laborers may organize only 
with the sanction of the government. Many of the 
newspapers are clamoring for greater liberalism. One 
learned doctor advocates that only when a man spends 
his wealth intelligently should he be permitted to keep 
it, but paying thousands for an old vase is to him un- 
pardonable. Certainly there is an outcry against nari- 
kinism in Japan, and for better relations between 
labor and capital. There has been a tremendous, 
though essentially selfish and undemocratic, demand 
from the students of the universities for greater share 
in the political activity of the country — though it was 
suppressed by the police. People are getting tired of 



VOICES IN THE STORM 373 

contributions of a million yen here and another there 
as a solution of a grave economic problem. 

Though the peers' parties all united, the leader of 
the Kenseikai, sl so-called commoner, came into power 
on the wave of liberalism following the upheaval of 
19 1 8. I venture to say that Mr. Hara is not much 
more of a liberal than was Terauchi, even though he does 
come from the "people." But this selection of Hara for 
premiership by the Emperor was a great step in advance 
for a country ruled as is Japan. For a country in which 
women still work on an average of from fourteen to 
sixteen hours a day under shocking and immoral con- 
ditions; where three-fifths of the people are engaged in 
agriculture and 90 per cent of them on patches of land 
from two and a half to five acres in size, though even 
this is rapidly disappearing — a commoner in power is 
prophetic. So-called politicians and leaders refer to 
their Emperor, who politically is an autocrat of auto- 
crats, though personally he is without blame, as a great 
"socialist." Still, he is the ruler of a country in which, 
even were the tax making a man eligible for voting one 
dollar instead of five, there would still be only four 
million voters out of fifty-five million potential citizens. 

Though there are not many in politics in Japan with 
a real understanding of what democracy means, the rice 
riots have opened their eyes. They are giving con- 
siderable attention to labor problems, but they are now 
too old for any actual constructive work. In the student 
lies the hope of Japan. Since the armistice there has 
been more real thinking and acting on behalf of labor 
than in the whole of Japan's past history. Mr. Suzuki, 
the president of th3 Yuaikai, returned to Japan from 
Paris where he represented his country at the Inter- 
national Labor Conference. He was heralded every- 
where, crowds meeting him with cheers of enthusiasm. 
As an indication of the awakening, there is already 



374 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

considerable difference of opinion among laborers since 
his return. 

Though the papers here have hardly more than no- 
ticed the International Labor Conference which has 
been in session at Washington all through this weary- 
month of strikes — November — our Httle island empire 
at our left — ^Japan — has been in a perfect hubbub of 
excitement. Japan took the matter very seriously. 
Some seventy or eighty men made up the delegation, 
including as its leaders doctors and capitalists — a motley 
array of personages and their inevitable retinue. Since 
the reports in the American papers on the agenda and 
the deliberations were almost scarce, the findings of the 
conference must in no wise have compensated Japan 
for its fine-tooth-comb process of selecting delegates 
who should neither know enough about labor problems 
to understand what was toward nor present too mani- 
fest a desire to learn which might indicate lack of experi- 
ence at home. Thus it came about that while we Hardly 
heard the voice of these proletarian confreres above the 
din of strikes and social unrest, in Japan it seems every- 
thing else was laid aside to select representatives who, 
as stated above, might give the impression of unstinted 
concern on the part of paternalistic Mutsuhito for his 
little sons, his kodomo. 

When visitors come, does the teacher call upon her 
backward pupil for exhibition? Japan was careful. 
Every other country can be as stupid as it likes. Gov- 
ernments everywhere may do as they will. Japan has 
great consideration for its toilers. It will not let them 
founder. So Baron Shi jo, director of the Industrial 
Bureau of the Department of Agriculture and Com- 
merce, approached a certain Mr. Masumoto, a univer- 
sity graduate and one of the principals of the Harima 
and Toba shipyards, with the offer of the post as dele- 
gate to the conference, Mr, Masumoto's qualifications 



A LITTLE FARCE 375 

lay in his having spent some time as workman in English 
shipyards. Mr. Masumoto found it necessary to consult 
with Mr. Yamamoto, Minister of Agriculture and Com- 
merce. An atrophied form of harakiri still exists in 
Japan, and because his status as a labor delegate was 
questioned, Mr. Masumoto forthwith resigned his 
places in these companies and accepted the delegateship. 
But Japanese laborers also know how to "die" in good 
form. Knowing this, the government found it advisable 
to guard Mr. Masumoto against harm. And Mr. 
Masumoto, opposed by labor, stood his ground as labor's 
representative. 

Had Japan been content with one delegate, my story 
would end here. But there is much more to be told. 

Doctor Takano was also approached by the govern- 
ment, but he declined on account of his lack of knowledge 
of labor matters, and because he knew that the two 
strong labor organizations — the Yuaikai and Shinaikai 
— ^would protest. Not that they objected to Doctor 
Takano, but they argued that the government had 
not consulted them and that therefore they would 
block any attempt to send delegates unaccredited from 
them direct. "The government, however, failed to 
take steps in the direction of negotiating with labor 
organizations,*' said Doctor Takano. "As for the atti- 
tude of the Yuaikai, I calculated that it was not opposed 
to me as Japanese labor delegate, individually, but it 
evidently determined to remain faithful to the original 
contention that the conference which selected candi- 
dates was lacking in qualification.'* Now here is indeed 
a dilemma — a doctor who is pleasing in the eyes of a 
strong labor organization and approved of by the gov- 
ernment, but is opposed for the post because labor had 
not been asked for its recommendations. Feeling that 
he could not afford to go protested by labor, he resigned. 
And thus ended the second episode in the little farce. 



376 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

The Yuaikai (Friendly Society) explained its position. 
It could not possibly compromise at the very beginning of 
its existence as part of an international labor conference. 
To accept a delegate selected for them by the conference 
of the Bureau of the Department of Agriculture and 
Commerce was in their eyes destructive compromise — 
and they would rather not be represented. 

This opposition to the government aroused internal 
trouble in the labor organization. Doctor Yoshino, a 
professor of Tokyo Imperial University, and Mr. Kita- 
zawa, a professor of Waseda University, withdrew from 
councilorship of this Friendly Society as a protest against 
its unreasonableness. This is the interlude in the little 
labor comedy. 

But where was the mass of labor in this performance ? 
It organized processions or proceeded disorganized, 
wore mourning, and hired bands to play a funeral march 
(which, if my knowledge of things Japanese is not 
warped, meant that it must have been a rendering of 
"Alice, Where Art Thou Going?"). Miners and other 
laborers gathered in the park in Tokyo with emblems 
and placards calling upon their fellow-laborers to awake! 
and enjoyed themselves most properly. The hero of 
the drama — Mr. Masumoto — stood firm. 

The curtain drops here. The world's applause brings 
our hero out in front of the curtain. We, the world, 
shout our convinced approval of the progress of Japan, 
We see not only the hero, but the whole cast — barring 
the multitude — and we think that labor conditions in 
Japan will now be so bettered that we will soon be able 
to discard our legislation against the importation of 
cheap Asiatic labor. But Japan smiles. Once more she 
has "put one over on us." 

In the mean time it is well to consider that back in 
Japan these delegates were prompted by a goodly por- 
tion of the press in not uncertain terms to push the 



THE WORM TURNS 377 

question of the elimination of racial discrimination for 
all they were worth. As they were feasted before their 
departure, the Prime Minister, Mr. Hara, and others 
emphasized in the same breath that as delegates they 
should remember that labor conditions are not the same 
the world over and that they should work for recogni- 
tion as Orientals without discrimination. This is the 
beginning of the tragedy which may some day be 
re-enacted on earth. 

Strikes are continuing to harass Japan as much as, if 
not more than, even here in America. The government 
is changing its attitude on suppression of labor organiza- 
tion, is tussling with the problem by direct and indirect 
methods, is giving earnest consideration to the acute and 
intensified problem of the housing of the poor, establish- 
ing public markets of unexpected magnitude. As an 
indication of the awakening there is already considerable 
difference of opinion among laborers since the return 
of Mr. Masumoto. 

Japan has done many remarkable things for herself 
in the past fifty years, but notwithstanding her trains 
and her telegraphs and all her modernism, Japan is 
still very far from being a perfect country. Inefficiency 
is as rife in the practical affairs as in political methods. 
The post-office went as near complete disorganization 
as it could have done. Letters posted to one's neighbor 
took days and weeks to reach the addressed, and packs 
of them were delivered wherever the boy chose to leave 
them. The confusion was so great that hundreds of 
cases of delay were reported from day to day in a special 
column run by The Japan Chronicle. The officials 
came down and we gained the information that insuffi- 
cient pay was the first cause — and sheer stupidity the 
second. The railroads are now so crowded that travel 
with comfort is impossible. Telegrams have been sent 
from Kobe to Tokyo by train, that method being safer 



37S JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

and more rapid. Telephones cannot be secured at a 
premium, many firms having waited years for installa- 
tions. The roads simply aren't roads in Japan. The 
list could be made as complete as could be desired. 

Yet when all is said and done, one suffers from a 
twinge of conscience; for returning from Japan, where 
one acquires the habit of criticizing everything and 
praising nothing (justified as that may be in detail), 
one soon finds that one can do so just as much in his own 
country. 

An American offered the Imperial University at Tokyo 
an endowment for a chair in American history. The 
government hesitated; it shifted. Then suddenly a 
chair in Shintoism — emperor-worship — was established. 
. . . Japan may keep her Emperor for years to come if 
the monarchy survives the difficulties ahead of it. But 
the surest way for Japan to bring about her own eclipse 
as a great nation is by obstructing her people in their 
efforts at self-uplifting. Japan cannot be excused be- 
cause, as some one said, the Japanese do not lie awake 
at night plotting to extend their country's sway. They 
must lie awake — and plot their own development. 

One might forgive the various administrations which 
have run the government during the last few years if 
they had at least so bettered internal conditions as to 
justify their aggressive foreign policies. But while lead- 
ing the country into serious international difficulties, 
they are giving the people at home little or nothing with 
which to console themselves for their sacrifices. Two 
things remain for Japan to do if she is to solve her do- 
mestic problems: she must institute universal suffrage 
and remove the ban on effective organization. 




XXVI 

EDUCATION BY RESCRIPT 

'N countries like Europe and America, where 
education has been speciaHzed for so many 
centuries, to attempt to treat it in a single 
chapter would be to become vague and lose 
perspective; for the present methods are as 
dissociated from the ancient as modem mechanics 
and engineering are from man's first experiences in 
drawing water with a pole. But in Japan it is just the 
reverse. To ignore historical perspective while trying 
to understand our problem would be to act like children 
who tease a Rip Van Winkle because he is strange to 
his new environment. The analogy must not be taken 
too literally. Japan was not asleep during the three 
hundred years of seclusion. We have made no progress 
which can rightfully be placed above theirs. They have 
not slept all the time; neither have we been awake 
throughout. Japan during that age of isolation was 
quite active, and from an educational point of view did 
more constructive work than at any time previous. 
But we must go still farther back if we are to understand 
the Japanese of to-day. Whatever criticisms we of 
Europe and America make must be done in the light of 
their past. Japan's past is so close to its inexplicable 
present that neither is at all clear without the other. 
Japan's political and social ideals, its standards and con- 
ditions, if rightly understood, will help us to judge that 
which is before us, and say truly whether things have 



38o JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

been bettered or made worse by sudden contact with 
the outer world. We must at all times remember that 
we are judging largely not what is of Japan, but what 
Japan has tried to do with things not hers. All that we 
see to-day in every walk of life is a development duel in 
make-up trying to achieve unity. And in education, 
none the less. We see not a nation of children ready and 
willing to accept from a kind teacher, but a nation of 
grown-ups who, like many immigrants in America, have 
been kept too long away from normal development 
and are now trying to make up by night school that 
which they could easily have learned in childhood. 

From time immemorial Japan has had her arts and 
crafts, which developed as normally as anywhere else 
in the world. Japan's actual schooling began about 
twelve hundred years ago. It was at that time that 
the youthful Kobo Daishi made the startling pilgrimage 
to China and there acquired knowledge of Buddhism 
and of writing. Two hundred years earlier Shotoku 
Taishi, the Prince Regent (572-621), had become a great 
patron of Buddhism and did more than any one to spread 
its influence in Japan. At that time education and 
learning may be said to have had their real beginning. 
But, oddly enough, while it took on such definite forms in 
Europe, in Japan it was limited to the study of the 
Chinese classics. In Europe the universities became 
the centers for political strife, a force and factor in life. 
More than one war was fought between rival factions 
within the universities. But here learning had no such 
sway. In later years the Buddhist monks often took 
things into their own hands, and as late as the time of 
Nobunaga (i 534-1 582) were a menace to the state or 
daimyo in control. But learning was little more than 
existent, there being only one university, in Kyoto. 
What its effect was, w^hat its teachings were, little is 
mentioned in official and unofficial histories. Of scien- 



ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT 381 

tific investigation, or invention, little was accomplished. 
The learning fostered was for the compilation of histories 
by order of the government. The first history of Japan ^ 
was compiled under the direction of Shotoku Taishi, 
but even in this matter it seems that the university 
had no one who took an impartial and literary interest 
in keeping records of events. This history is little 
more than a chronological list of sovereigns. Medicine 
and art were taught, and mathematics to a certain 
extent, but even these and other educational efforts 
were essentially limited and existed for the benefit of 
the children of officials and not those of the masses. 
The great age of Japanese art and literature reached its 
climax in the Heian epoch, between the ninth and 
twelfth centuries. During that period most of the 
classic Japanese literature and painting found birth, 
though they were indulged in completely by the upper 
classes and courtiers. Here women contributed much 
if not most of the great works in literature. The poetry 
of that period was, however, to a very great extent, of a 
dilettante nature. There were some private schools in 
Kyoto, but they confined themselves to the study of the 
Chinese classics, and even up to the time of the Restora- 
tion, reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught only 
in the temples. Aside from these and the general social 
arts such as music, dancing, and the tea ceremonies, 
education may be said to have been trimmed even more 
closely up to the time of the first Tokugawa shogunate 
in 1 6 13. General histories of Japan make little more 
than mere reference to such educational pursuits. 

During the three centuries preceding the closing of 
Japan to the world all education was virtually at a 
standstill, on account of internal strife. These, not the 
three hundred years of isolation, should be called the 



* Kojiki,~OT " Records of Ancient Matters," A. D. 712. 



382 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

dark ages. But with the final cessation of strife after 
Hideyoshi conquered the warring daimyos and real 
peace came to Japan education began to be regarded 
with more favor. 

The closing of the doors of Japan to foreign inter- 
course was followed by the opening of the transoms of 
thought. The arts of peace were wisely substituted for 
those of war by the governing class. The fifth Toku- 
gawa shogun was the most zealous in the advancement 
of learning. So much so that the various feudal barons 
became converts and established schools in their separate 
fiefs, going even so far as to include the sons of farmers, 
merchants, and artisans in the study of the three r*s. 
Interest in literature virtually became rampant, and some 
men issued hundreds of books on the classics, history, law, 
astronomy, and botany. Some authors are credited with 
as many as three hundred volumes, and some groups with 
as many as a thousand. The period is considered by the 
Japanese as the golden age of literature. 

Though it would be the height of ignorance to assume 
that Japan was an uncivilized nation till the coming of 
the foreigners, still it is safe to say that in comparison 
with European culture as derived from the Greek and 
Latin scholars Japan was wanting. In her arts and indus- 
tries her beauty and charm were exceptionally fine. But 
it now remains to be seen what Japan will do with such 
borrowings as she has made from Europe and America. 

With the second coming of the Europeans, Japan 
entered upon a stage in her history the consequences of 
which are as infinite as is world progress itself. No 
nation can live alone, and Japan has proved it. Had 
she not been so rudely wakened by American "push," 
it is easy to estimate what would have been the unfor- 
tunate state to which she would certainly have fallen. 
The stimulus given to education and learning by a 
sudden return to peace was incalculable. In learning 



J 



THE WHITE MAN RETURNS 383 

as well as in natural law, perpetual motion is a dream 
impossible of realization. No matter how eager a man 
may be, his scholarship must be revived by contact 
with the world about him. Japan, left to herself, could 
not but reach out to the world beyond or die. And 
when the knockers at the gate were finally answered it 
was none too soon, for in a little while longer Japan 
would have died of self -strangulation. No wonder, then, 
that when the pretense of not wanting foreigners was 
finally swept aside, Japan took to western art and 
thought like a healthy young epidemic. 

The Meiji era will probably be the most outstanding 
of all in Japanese history. Since the "sneaking" away 
to Europe for the sake of an education, as did Ito and 
Inouye, there has been a steady stream of students to 
Europe and America from Japan. Most of these went 
to America, and every student who returned came flushed 
with the hope of regenerating his fellow-countrymen. 
True, many, if not most, rapidly reverted to Japanese 
ways of thought and action. But the consequence is 
that now there is hardly a subject either of a practical, 
social, or theoretical nature that is not being taught in 
the schools of Japan. How they are being inculcated, 
what changes and transformations they undergo in the 
hands of the Japanese in order to adapt them to their 
"special" needs and character, no foreigner will perhaps 
ever know. What interpretations, what trimmings, 
what refutations occur I cannot tell other than that this 
very thought is stimulated by the reports issued by the 
government. 

In the government reports it is interesting to read the 
General Remarks. Perhaps in no country in the world 
would a Minister of Education preface his report with 
such a statement as this : 

"In making a record of the chief affairs transacted 
during the fourth statistical year of Taisho, we dare say 

25 



384 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

that the most distinguished fact, besides the work which 
had been carried on under the old regime, is the pre- 
paratory measures for the Coronation. The selection 
of the songs and musical notes to celebrate the occasion 
in all the schools, the compilation of the 'outlines of the 
Accession Ceremony' and the observance of a con- 
gratulatory ceremony in every school, were the chief 
undertakings." 

The whole of the general remarks are such as show 
clearly that education in Japan is a process of inculca- 
tion of the spirit considered by the government to be 
essential. Of course, every country is more or less 
guilty of the same thing. For instance, we discovered 
that all histories in America were unduly severe in their 
accounts of England's culpability to the colonies. But 
these remarks are so obviously paternalistic as to evoke 
amusement and wrath alternately. 

It is common knowledge that readers in the Japanese 
primary schools instil, with not a little vim, faith in the 
divinity of the Emperor. All books used in the early 
years of childhood cannot be other than those copy- 
righted by the government and passed by it. In the 
other schools greater liberty is allowed, and I am indeed 
surprised at the liberality in selection of books for 
reading (in English) which may be found in higher school 
libraries, the Life of Bebel, Lassalle, Socialism, etc. But 
any serious criticism of Japan is summarily suppressed. 
Every Japanese child is said to know about Washington 
and Lincoln, but as heroes only, not as democrats. Of 
course, all governments the world over are arbitrary in 
the choice of books permitted in the education of the 
young, but Japan certainly seems to go as far as it is 
possible. 

One of the outstanding features of the Japanese educa- 
tional system is the stress it lays upon the teaching of 
such morals as it deems advisable. "A constitutional 



INNOCULATION 385 

spirit" and ''national morality" are constantly reiter- 
ated in government reports of educational work, and the 
establishment of young men's societies (there are over 
twenty thousand with a membership of about three 
million), and their effects, are given account of in fre- 
quent newspaper reports. "From the point of view of 
a statesman," says the last (43d) Annual Report, "the 
development of these societies is most desirous on ac- 
count of their contributing much to the advancement of 
localities. If we observe how Boy Scouts in foreign 
countries have been developed, and see, further, how 
they are of use to the state, we realize that more pains 
must be taken to promote young men's societies in 
Japan. To this end the Minister of Education in co- 
operation with the Minister of Home Affairs, despatched 
instructions to every local government to foster these 
societies most suitably, according to local circumstances, 
and to encourage in the members the spirit of loyalty 
and filial piety." These societies have become one of 
the most reactionary forces in the country. The extent 
to which the government goes out of its way to foster 
imperialistic ideals is, to the western way of thinking, 
amazing. Just before leaving Japan I made a "pil- 
grimage" to the national Shinto shrines at Yamada Ise. 
These are the special shrines of the Mikados. An 
empire of school-children marched past, class by class, 
halted, right-faced at command; the instructor-driller 
took five paces in front of them, left-faced, bowed jerkily 
a twenty-degree bow, took three long goosey strides, 
kicked his heels together in German fashion, made a forty- 
five-degree bow, his hands stiffly at his knees, giving to 
his arms a mechanical motion, retreated three steps, 
bowed again — at which all the youngsters also bowed — 
left-faced, strutted to the end of the line, and ordered 
his "army" to march. They turned about face to the 
left, straightened out their line again, and repeated the 



386 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

bowing in the opposite direction. Beyond the hill 
stands the greater shrine of Naiku. Every year thou- 
sands of the little children of the Empire are taken in 
long trains from all the ends of the dominion to pay 
homage at these shrines to the Mikados. 

With a people like the Japanese this most likely 
works famously, nor can any one complain so long as in 
achieving their own national ideals they do not affect 
the ideals of other nations. There is still not a little 
of the clan spirit obtaining in Japan, and the govern- 
ment aims to supplant the disintegrating influence of 
loyalty to one's feudal lord by loyalty to the Emperor. 
How these counter-currents sometimes result in tragedy 
is seen in the fate of Viscount Mori, Minister of State 
for Education in 1888. The Minister was a radical, 
yet he was a great leader. He dared to push aside the 
white sheet which hangs before the shrine at Ise to show 
his disregard of Shintoism and its gods. Two years 
later, on the day of the celebration of the granting of 
the Constitution, February 11, 1889, Arinori Mori was 
treacherously assassinated. The murderer became the 
hero of all Japan. When one contemplates these strange 
turns Japanese psychology takes, one is simply horrified, 
and looks with fear upon a nation so set in superstition. 
For not only was that the sentiment of the moment. 
To this very day the murderer is exalted, and Marquis 
Okuma, the "Grand Old Man" of Japan, last year 
praised this act. 

The path of the foreign instructor in Japan is now no 
more the path of glory. The days when he was the idol 
of new Japan are gone. To-day he is an inconsequen- 
tial drudge. He carries his ''professorship" with what 
little pride is left to him, and is grateful to the gods that 
his years of patient effort are not being rewarded with a 
medal and dismissal, as has been the case with sea- 
captains, engineers, and all the other foreigners who 



CLAN INSTINCT IN CLASS 387 

have educated Japan. One of all that vast troupe of 
educators alone is still the monarch of the regeneration 
of Japan — and he is the teacher of English. For what- 
ever the genius of the Japanese may be along other lines, 
when it comes to learning English it meets its Waterloo. 
So that the way of the English instructor, though minus 
all the romance and prestige which garlanded his pred- 
ecessors* way, is still one of pleasure profusely mixed 
with pain. His days are numbered, however, and some 
are no more. 

I had entered upon my duties as instructor of English 
in the Kobe Higher Commercial School with all sorts of 
notions about methods. Nothing in all my life have I 
unlearned so quickly as those useless schemes. One 
very worldly schoolmaster, without the shadow of an 
illusion circling round his bald head, puts the situation 
exquisitely to his students when they ask him which is 
right: "English people say it this way; Americans, 
that; Japanese say it as they like." I was not given a 
single hint as to how much English the students knew 
nor what I should teach. And I had to find out. To 
get them to talk is as difficult as driving an artesian 
well; you sometimes go a thousand feet through rock 
and then get no water. They simply will not open 
their mouths. Yet most of them have had seven and 
eight years of English study. One of the first pecul- 
iarities I noticed was that when looking straight into 
the eyes of a student, and asking him a question, he 
will invariably think you are talking to his neighbor and 
regard him as the guilty person. And behind and 
around him half a dozen will bob up as though they had 
been called upon. This most likely comes from the 
native habit of never looking into a man's eyes when 
speaking to him. 

The problem of teaching Japanese boys is not an easy 
one. From the moment of birth, a boy is not only his 



388 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

own master, but master of every one with whom he 
comes in contact. So that when he comes to school he 
is the lordling — and you just try to revolutionize things, 
if you can! Student strikes are quite frequent and 
many a professor has been forced out of his position be- 
cause the students didn't favor him. As a consequence 
no student knows what his grading is, nor which pro- 
fessor flunked him. But the students still take matters 
into their own hands much earlier. They leave the 
classes en masse if they are in any way displeased with 
either the method or subject-matter. The strange 
part of this is that when such a situation takes place the 
few earnest students will follow in the wake of the rest. 
Those who have put in an appearance will ask that 
either the whole class be marked present or all absent, 
including themselves. This loyalty in defense of wrong 
is illuminating. 

On the whole, however, I found the students respectful 
and earnest, sometimes touchingly so. Here and there 
a young man shows such qualities as make a man 
troubled less he misdirect him. Some are the personi- 
fication of humility and gentleness. On the other hand, 
there comes the boor whose boldness and impudence are 
trying and puzzling. They are sensitive to a fault. 
The slightest correction of speech drives them back 
into a seclusion such as their nation lived in for two 
hundred and seventy years. They are ready to criti- 
cize you or your ways. Wrote one student, "As above 
said, taking note is very uneconomical and such method 
must be given up at once." They resent any method 
which seems to put them in the elementary class, yet 
what they know is little more than elementary. I have 
never come across such national self-consciousness in 
any people. They cannot write an essay of twenty 
words without using over and over again some reference 
to Japan in the most elaborate terms. 



COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE 389 

The commercial school is of utmost importance in 
Japan. The students are simply bursting with com- 
mercial ambition. It is business from one thought to 
another. Only eight hundred pupils can be accommo- 
dated, but every year there are over two thousand appli- 
cants trying the entrance examinations. Of these only 
two hundred or so gain admission. Recently the govern- 
ment undertook to improve and extend its educational 
system, making of Higher Schools universities. Intense 
agitation was set going at the Kobe Higher Commercial 
School because the status of their rival, the Tokyo 
Higher Commercial School, had been raised. Students 
would discuss the university situation during class 
periods, telling their instructors not to hold the class, 
because they were busy. This went on for a couple of 
weeks. So far nothing definite has been achieved. 

The meaning of this promotion is clear. Morally 
Japan is reverting to her own conceptions of right and 
wrong, but that will not interfere with her acceptance of 
foreign ways of doing business. Japan frankly places 
the Commercial School on a par with schools of liberal 
arts, in that following the tendencies becoming pro- 
nounced even in western countries. During the war 
New Zealand spoke quite seriously of doing this. New 
Zealand reasoned that Germany had almost captured 
the trade of the world because commercial education was 
part of her system. And New Zealand did not intend 
to lose the advantages of a blood-won victory over a 
superior German commercial educational system. But, 
of course, though putting the arts and sciences in the 
background in this way. New Zealand is western in 
thought and morality. Japan is Oriental. Japan ac- 
cepts all the sciences and practices in education which 
have made the great western nations and uses them to 
foster her own national ideals. No student of things 
Japanese would for a moment deny that Japan has 



390 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

traits and characteristics which would appreciably help 
in making this a better world. But along with lofty 
ethical conceptions comes the faith which has been 
christened bushido, the faith of the sword, which is being 
inculcated in the hearts and minds of Japanese youth. 

For, in spite of this absence of direct control, the 
government has a pretty firm hand on its student body. 
Students are much more unruly in the lower schools, 
which are controlled by the municipalities or by the 
prefectures. In the higher government schools the 
students are not allowed to discuss politics or criticize 
the government, though I have on one or two occasions 
had them go off at a great rate in conversation classes. 
I was once listening to an embryo orator rehearse his 
oration. He had to refer to the rice riots in a word of 
warning to the world, but would do so only as "the 
event of last summer." I told him it would be more 
definite to say "rice riots," but he declined, saying that 
even mention of the word "riot" was prohibited in the 
school. 

Sometimes, when I came into the cold, dirty class- 
rooms, my heart sickened. The dust, dirt, and dilapi- 
dated desks and squeaky floors — cheerless, colorless, and 
not odorless — I could have fled in despair. And the ill- 
clad, untidy, black-uniformed students aroused my pity. 
The janitor was in the habit of pouring water on the 
wooden floors and mats at 9 a.m. instead of sweeping the 
halls and rooms, so that the place was cold and dungeon- 
like. I once asked a native professor why this was 
done. "You see, Japanese are not so sensitive to cold 
as you foreigners," he answered. I thought of the 
padded coats and shawls, so common to both male 
and female attire in Japan, the frozen fingers, and the 
shivering — and smiled at the chronic vanity of these 
people. 

The life of the student is not to be envied. It means 



STUDENT LIFE PATHETIC 391 

years and years of grinding application to work, with not 
always a lucrative reward in the end. Most of the 
students seem pathetically poor, their health is not of 
the best, and one often contemplates the seeming priva- 
tions with sadness. This is doubtless due to some 
extent to the fact that they are compelled to wear 
foreign black uniforms with military collars, which are 
generally ill-fitting and cheap, secondary garments, as 
it were, to those native to them. Hygienically, their 
own would be much more serviceable. 

They live very cheaply, the average cost of a month's 
schooling being about thirty yen for board and all. 
Some live with country people round about or in board- 
ing-houses, at which they pay about twelve yen ($6) 
a month for food and lodging. At the school dormitory 
they are housed for two yen a month, and their board 
comes to about fifteen yen. The poverty of some is 
extreme. 

The general educational work of the country differs 
from that in other countries. Though at first modeled 
after the American educational ideals, it later fell under 
the influence of German practice. The period of school- 
ing extends from the seventh to the twenty -fourth year, 
and no student graduates before the latter age. To 
attain a doctor's degree requires hard study up to a 
man's thirtieth year. All subjects are compulsory. 
Students put in from thirty to thirty-two hours class- 
work a week, besides a considerable amount of collateral 
reading and home-work which is entailed. That this 
has been the cause of many a ruined constitution is 
almost proverbial with the students. Ask them to 
write a composition about the value of exercise, and all 
seem faced with the same fear of breakdown in health. 

Education in the East is essentially a lecture system; 
that is, the student listens and absorbs what he can. 
He follows the professor, trying to take down as copious 



392 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

notes as it is possible with such an inconvenient system 
of writing as Japanese. There are only two Higher 
Commercial Schools in the country, and to them students 
flock from all over Japan and even from Korea and 
China. Some try the examinations over and over again, 
even after their thirtieth year. 

The total number of schools in the Empire is 38,000; 
of teachers, 196,000; of students, 8,540,437; and of 
graduates, 1,514,038. This for the year 191 5-16, and 
shows an increase over the previous year of 660 schools, 
4,432 teachers, 264,761 students, and 45,682 graduates. 

There are 68 schools for deaf, dumb, and blind, 62 
of which are private. They taught music, acupuncture, 
and massaging to 2,645 pupils during 191 5-16, but this 
is only a bare fraction of the total number. The number 
of blind people seen wandering about in the hustle and 
bustle of unregulated street traffic without being run 
down is simply amazing. 

Girls receive instruction just the same as do the boys, 
and there are two Higher Normal Schools for women — 
one in Tokyo, the other in Nara. These aim to teach 
women literature, science, and domestic accomplish- 
ments, specializing in such subjects as students may 
elect which are not contrary to the educational policy. 
Kindergartening and nursing are among the special 
courses. All students must be over seventeen and 
imder twenty-two years of age, and unmarried. There 
are schools for almost every branch of learning — ^literary, 
scientific, and technical. 

As to school hygiene, the government confesses that 
**it must be owned that the result is far below perfec- 
tion," in spite of its increased efforts. Elnowing what 
poverty and hunger prevail among the poor in our own 
schools, I have wondered not a little what it must be 
here. The following is of interest: **As regards the 
development of the spinal column, constitution, and 



SCHOOL HYGIENE 393 

eyesight of students and pupils in the institutions 
under the direct control of the department, they cannot 
be given a word, owing to the difference of the school, 
sex, age, etc. Generally speaking, there was an increase 
of male students and pupils who had strong or weak 
constitutions, when compared with the previous year, 
and a decrease of the medium, and in female pupils the 
case was the reverse; while respecting the development 
of the spinal column, those who had abnormally curved 
columns decreased in male students and pupils, and 
increased in female pupils. As to eyesight, there was an 
increase in both sexes of those who were defective in one 
or both eyes." The general tendency as regards cases 
of illness that year was "a little worse than last year," 
says the report. Out of 21,735 children examined, 54.5 
per cent had decayed teeth. 

One of the first things in hygiene the Japanese will 
have to learn is how to live in foreign-styled houses, as 
most of the schools are built that way. Unaccustomed 
to the use of foreign clothing, especially shoes, they 
encounter one of the first evils. The dust kept down by 
perpetual sprinkling of the floors must be a strain on the 
strongest constitution, yet they seem to pride them- 
selves in the practice of such methods as invoke the law 
of the survival of the fittest. 

There is considerable dissatisfaction with the methods 
of education in vogue, just as there is with us, and this 
will tend" to increase until those who have hitherto been 
dependent upon foreigners for direction and advice 
learn to handle the tasks they have but recently 
assumed. Hard as it is for those foreigners who find 
their services only half appreciated, still for the good of 
Japan it must be admitted the present assumptions of 
native teachers are the best for the future of education 
in Japan. A Japanese teacher must protect himself 
against the competition of the foreigner (especially in 



J94 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

European languages). The results of native effort are 
often most amusing. 

The Emperor's birthday is an occasion for more than 
mere cessation of work or school. Throughout all the 
institutions the portraits of the Emperor and Empress 
and Crown Prince are set upon the platforms, veiled. 
At our school the faculty stands before it, in front of the 
assemblage of students. The director, in full-dress 
with gilt embroidery and sword, takes his place, half 
facing the portrait and half the assembly. At a word 
from one of the faculty the students rise to be wel- 
comed. Then the Kimigaya (national anthem) is sung. So 
sacred is this hymn that singing it has been prohibited 
except on national occasions. Without formal an- 
nouncement, the director steps solemnly in front of us 
to where he faces the pictures; then, just upon the 
sound of ''yowa'' in the song, he advances, and upon 
the word ''sazareishV he pulls the curtains aside, 
having at due intervals bowed reverently. The song 
is sung twice over, a lacquer box is opened and the 
Imperial Rescript on Education is read : 

Know ye. Our subjects: 

Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad 
and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our 
subjects, ever united in loyalty and filial piety, have from generation 
to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the 
fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein also lies the source 
of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affec- 
tionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be har- 
monious, as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; 
extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, 
and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; 
furthermore advance public good and promote common interests; 
always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emer- 
gency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus 
guard and maintain the propriety of Our Imperial Throne coeval with 
heaven and earth. So shall ye be not only Our good and faithful sub- 
jects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers. 



PICTURE REVERENCE 395 

The way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our 
Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and 
the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places. It is Our 
wish to lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our 
subjects, that we may all thus attain to the same virtue. The 30th 
day of the loth month of the 23d year of Meiji (1890). 

After a short address by one of the faculty and the 
reading of a slight paper by a student, the ceremony is 
over — and the curtains are again drawn across the por- 
traits. There is nothing shabby nor affected about it. 
It is done thoroughly and properly and with reverence. 

I had once unwittingly led a class in general discussion 
from one thing to another until, under current events, 
I contrasted the freedom of movement of the President 
of the United States with the King of England. It 
had been reported that returned soldiers on parade 
broke ranks and shook hands with the King. I then 
contrasted the easy simplicity of Prince Arthur with the 
rigid formalism of Prince Nashimoto, both of whom I 
had seen while stopping at the Nara Hotel one summer. 
Then I added that formerly, when their Emperor passed, 
they were not allowed to look at him, any one caught so 
doing being in danger of losing his eyes. Even to-day 
no one can be on an open balcony, but must be on the 
ground when royalty goes by. I made no comment 
on this. Up spoke one student, "You must not 
mention our Emperor in the same breath with kings 
and presidents." 

Picttu*e reverence is not limited to royalty. One of 
the instructors had died while in New York, and we 
received cabled information. Everybody assembled — • 
as is done only on special occasions — and we appeared 
in frock-coats. The man's wife and children came. 
A large portrait, framed, was set upon the platform, 
speeches were made to it and to the assemblage. But 
most effective of all was the reading of an address by 



396 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

one of the students, from sheets ahnost the size of a 
newspaper. His tall body, ill-fitting clothes, and worn, 
unpolished boots, made of him a most pathetic figure. 
He bowed, looked at the picture, and commenced read- 
ing. I have never heard a more effective address. 
His voice at times fell to a whisper as though choked 
with emotion, and when it rose there seemed to be a 
mustering of earnestness. No one need say the Jap- 
anese show no emotion. Throughout the assembly 
faces of students were red with weeping, and one visitor 
was grieved to tears. The wife smiled sadly. And in 
his soft, well-modulated voice the student went on. 
Every time he said the word sensei (teacher) one felt 
a world of love had gone out to cheer his departed 
instructor. 

So strongly developed is their national pride that 
when in a play given by the students they represented 
Caesar and other great generals kneeling before Emma, 
the ruler of their underworld, the student dressed as 
Hideyoshi wouldn't kneel as did the others. 

Indeed, one of the most offensive traits of the Japanese 
is this chauvinistic self-conceit. One cannot read a 
statement that is not simply stuffed with self-glorifi- 
cation. In Japan to America y^ by Japanese notables, 
one is amazed at the naivete. Such statements fairly 
stare at one out of the pages: "They look upon their 
kings or emperors as sovereign apparently as we do; 
but — to speak figuratively — theirs are the hat, while 
ours is the head." "The Japanese are a people 
with peculiar characteristics." "While we are busily 
engaged in importing good things from foreign coun- 
tries, we are not foolish enough to forget the beautiful 
characteristics original with Japan. Below I shall 
enumerate a few of our characteristics," "So in Japan 



^ Japan to America, edited by Naochi Masaoka. 



FALSE DIGNITY 397 

there is no need for such an undertaking as the ethical 
movement that is seen in Europe and America. We are 
practising what is preached in these ethical movements." 
"We are not fettered by traditions and conventionalities. 
. . .Thus in forty or fifty years we have arrived at the 
present condition of perfection, after so many changes 
and reforms." **In this respect, our system may be 
superior to that of European schools, whose relations to 
one another have been a process of growth." *'In 
short, Japanese education is the most democratic of all 
the nations in the world." "There is much more that 
I should like to say about Japanese education, but lack 
of space forbids." And there is three-quarters of a 
blank page beneath it. 

The beauty and wonder and excellence of Japanese 
education exist largely in the minds of the proud edu- 
cators. The exaggerations which have gone abroad 
about the 98-per-cent attendance must be understood 
in the Hght of examples. Japan has done remarkably 
well, but there is no need of putting on a false face. 
Pride in what they have already done is amply justified; 
but not boasting. The result is a hampering of such 
faculties as would otherwise yield readily enough to 
training. The outstanding fact of Japanese Hnguistic 
failure is proof of this assertion. Were they more 
modest in their assumptions they would acquire a better 
grasp of a language; but pride, sensitiveness to a fault, 
keeps them from using what they know or accepting 
correction in what they don't know. Again this may 
be regarded as somewhat of a universal trait, but it is 
more generally true in Japan. 

There have been innumerable examples of Japanese 
English. I could produce a volume which would be 
most illuminating. A psychoanalyst would laugh at 
the attempted secrecy so peculiar to these people, for 
in their unwitting use of words their unconscious is 



398 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

easily revealed. But here only the grammatical and 
humorous phases will be regarded. 

A student in a commercial-practice class wrote, 
"Hideyoshi built the castle in Osaka and in that castle 
he engaged in advertisement.'* Another, **Will you be 
so kind as to pay us in three days in order to make us 
sorry to stop business transaction with you hereafter." 
But for a pleasant insight into what they think of their 
own educational advantages, here is a speech delivered 
by one young man before an audience in the English- 
speaking society: 

Defects of Our Educational System 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

You must widely open our eyes and must look into Our Educational 
System. This is, I believe, one of the most important problems when 
our Educational reform and expansion are going to be made. Surely, 
you will find out many evil influences, but I think, I have a privilledge 
in stating clearly and proving my words with utmost indifference. 
Because I am a student. I am a student imder the present educa- 
tional system in which I have been taught these i6 years. 

Really, schools in Japan are the productions of mechanical process 
applied in our education. At the age of handicraft, some 4 centuries 
ago, articles were made one by one by the hands of workman, but 
at the present industrial age articles are made on a large scale. Such 
method, as manufacturing a great mass of articles was applied to our 
educational system and there, we found out our beloved schools. 
However, I have now an appeal to you which you must never forget. 
That is, human beings are not articles in any way, so, they should not 
be treated like articles. Don't you find any such tendency in our 
educational System? Indeed, the only way to refine our System is, 
to exclude evil influences, caused by such a mass producting method 
as fast as we can and the smaller the defects, the better is the school. 

From our point of view, the endowment of each boy seems to be 
equal, but we find a good difference of capacity after they become 7 
or 8 yrs. old. This, I believe, is due to the influence of their environ- 
mental education. While, if we consider this matter more seriously, 
we will find out many defects in our system. Our boys are pressed 
vigorously not to gain an opportunity of up starting. I think you 
have stil in mind the disturbance among the teachers of primary 



o 

H 

a 
w 

r 
> 

N 
M 

o 
o 
o 

H 

M 

m 
n 

o o 

2 5 

M O 
O "^ 

■^ > 













:*^li^ 






W O 

rr ^ 

H W 

W M 
O H 

J O 

fc 00 

O O 

O O 
w ^ 

a > 

IS 

O -> 

u 

z 



A STUDENT'S OPINION 399 

schools in Kyoto. This was no other than the matter that a bright 
boy was allowed a special promotion in his course of study. Of 
course, such a promotion is thought to be unreasonable in our prensent 
educational system, but there must be a proper institute for the clever 
boy to give the opportunity of starting upward. 

We will now discuss our middle school education. There we find, 
all the boys are forced to receive the same education. Boys who are 
anxious to proceed to university, boys who wish to follow up their 
father's business, boys who has scientific genius or boys who has a 
peculiar instinct for art and literature, they are all restricted to obey 
the iron rules of our educational system. Therefore a boy who has a 
superior ability knowledge for philosophical matters but not so in 
mathematics must leave the school, for his failure in the examination. 
Such a tragedy is often seen in our middle schools. We should 
exclude this bad system of losing many prominent students. Proverb 
says, a precocious boy at 10, a clever at 15, a common at 20. This, 

1 think, is repeated quite occasionally among our young men. Gen- 
erally, a boy if he is healthy in mind, has a strong desire for intel- 
lectual pursuit but only a problem must be consedered in this case. 
That is, whether his interest for knowledge continues to a very long 
time or whether he is put into a circumstance of intellectual freedom 
in which he is easily supplied knowledge as he wishes to have. Of 
course, a boy in that environment is sure to become a great man. 

Dr. Wener, a professor in the Harverd University is the man who 
has been trying his son in this way and, he has brought about a re- 
markable affair. His son named, Nower, entered the Taff Univer- 
sity at 10 yrs. old. received a degree of Dr of Philosophy at 15 yrs. 
old. After that, he studied in the Cambridge University for about 

2 yrs. and returned to America. He was afterwards appointed to 
the professor of Philosophy in the Haiverd University. Really he 
was then yet 20 yrs. of old. Such a method of education adapted by 
Dr. Wener is never a new one. In olden times, thus was common 
among Greeks. If you read the Greek history you will amaze to 
find many geniuses, as if we see thousands of stars in the night of 
Autumn sky. This is certainly due to the good breeding among the 
Greeks. 

If our ideal is named "the genius education" that is,- to let a boy 
induce to have interest for considertion for natural principles and 
give him a sufficient knowledge as he demands and kindle a fire on 
the top of his endowments! I now say, for the sake of boys of real 
ability, we must ulter our institute so as to enable them to under the 
university at 10 yrs. old. At present, cramming seems to be the 
only mottoe in our education especial in the middle schools. Why 

26 



460 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

we can devote ourselves to our lessons? Such method of teaching, 
can only educate fools, only fools. Of course, this is due to the mis- 
understanding of teachers, the most natural and the most important 
thing in education is, not merely cramming but far more necessary 
is to cultivate the ability of students, and lead them easily to acquire 
new knowledge. In other words, the means of education must be 
the systematic training of the brain on the part of students. This 
method, I believe, has a remarkable good result, that is, to enable 
boys to use their penetrate judgement and reasoning. From this 
point of view we don't need so many lessons as we have now. 

I have told you that schools in Japan are the production of me- 
chanical process applied in education but the one who has brought 
about this process is certainly the economic principles. While if we 
consider like this, without money, the school education must be lim- 
itted to a certain sphere. The substancial scarcity, is one of our 
present difficulties in our educational matters. 

There are so many of teachers who deplore their ill-treatment and 
a good number of patriots who are grieving of the public for their 
indifference for educational matters. But what is the origin of their 
ill-treatment? or what has caused the public indifference? Their 
are a few who understand these. In our country there is a party who 
are always oppressing the educational expansion. They fear, this 
expansion, for the safe guard of their bodies. They usually take away 
a greater part of the national expenditures and leave a small portion 
to the educational imdertaking. We are told that the present 
Governmental schools can be doubled by the money, wasted by the 
explosion of late battle ship ''Kawachi." 

We must, now, from this moment, push in to the heart of our edu- 
cation and improve the defects of our system. I now say, "Open 
your Eyes", *' Penetrate the defects decisively and earnestly hope 
you will reflect upon your mind. 

I thank you for your kind attention. 

Difficult of management, proud and unyielding, 
proud in their superiority to their own uneducated 
brethren and proud in the consciousness of belonging to 
a proud race, Japanese students provoke one to intense 
dislike. Yet when you meet them in private and learn 
to know what they think and aspire to, you find among 
them types not easily duplicated in any country. When 
I announced my resignation from my position, class 
after class simply flooded my ears with rhetorical re- 



SENTIMENTALISM 401 

grets, but when I put them to the test which determines 
the sincerity of most associations I found that all the 
sentimentalism vanished in thin air. During the war 
they strutted the word ''democracy" about. The wave 
of liberalism which swept over the country found its 
greatest response in the students. The franchise was 
demanded by them throughout the country. But it 
petered out as a class issue — they as students rather 
than the people as a whole should be liberated. How- 
ever, the students are the leaven of freedom in Japan. 
At times lovable and openly affectionate, ready to senti- 
mentalize over you, one never gets away from the feeling 
that they are using you for special advantages in the 
study of English. Missionaries have found this to be 
true to such an extent that they now conduct their ser- 
vices largely in Japanese, reahzing that the sop of English 
study produced conversion too readily. I may sound 
severe, but I am only trying to give as true a picture of 
the Japanese as I can. 




XXVII 

SUPPRESSION 

Press Censorship 

|ITH the whole world practising press cen- 
sorship, it seems hardly fair to pick out one 
particular country for special observation 
or criticism. Whether Japan is better or 
worse than any other country in her effort 
to keep thought in check is debatable. One thing she 
is beyond measure — unique. We of the West do not 
exempt a man from punishment because he didn't 
know the law, but we generally so promulgate our laws 
as to make it possible for the law-abiding to steer a safe 
course. Not so in the case of publicity in Japan. 
There, no matter how willing a person may be to re- 
spect certain existing statutes, their interpretation 
in accordance with whim makes obedience well-nigh 
impossible. 

For instance. You are a publisher of a foreign news- 
paper. You have lived for years in the country, re- 
spected and feared. You have tried to understand the 
ways of the people among whom you have chosen to 
live. You insist, however, on publishing news when it 
comes to you. 

But, "No," says the censor. "You may surely pub- 
lish news, but you must take your chances in the matter. 
It is not unlikely that the news you publish in your 
newspaper may not be to our advantage, and in conse- 
quence it will be suppressed." 



A SIMPLE CENSOR 403 

*'But if that is the case," you plead, "kindly tell us 
what kind of news we may not publish." 

"That we cannot do," admits the censor, "for we do 
not know what news will come in for you to publish." 
And, indeed, even a censor will admit his ignorance 
sometimes, and not all can be expected to be prophets. 

"Then," you pray, "will you please tell us what of 
that news we have already published is objectionable. 
Point out specifically why you have suppressed our 
issue?" 

"That is also impossible," says the censor (or, to be 
exact, the police official who happens to have been 
detailed on that job), "because, if we did that, then you 
might make use of the point in an indirect way and thus 
expose our desire for secrecy." 

"Then what shall I do," says the editor, despairingly, 
or turns to his desk with an idea. 

Publishing news, like everything else in Japan, is an 
altogether new thing. During Japan's seclusion from 
world contact there was no news to publish. Even 
curiosity was killed. If on occasion some leading lord 
had a quarrel with another lord and one of the lords' 
heads came off, well, it was not such an unusual event as 
to require large type. That little world could live and 
wait until some historian-playwright would turn the 
incident out in dramatic form. Then another would 
print it, a third would memorize it and proceed to 
recite passages from it to such crowds as dared to gather. 
And copies would be sold. 

Since then a Mr. Black has been to Japan and has 
taught them how to publish news. Consequently ideas 
spread so rapidly that the government became alarmed. 
They offered Mr. Black an easy job. Well, like the dog 
and the piece of meat, he soon learned what it is to take 
a well-paying job that didn't exist. 



404 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

The trials of the foreign editor above described are 
not phases of racial discrimination. The native editor 
knows as little what he may do with his paper as does 
anybody else. So true is this that each newspaper which 
regards its editor as more useful in the office than in 
jail keeps a "dummy editor" on the job, who, though 
seldom in the office, is ready and pleased to be in jail as 
occasion demands. 

It doesn't always pan out that way, as Mr. Maruyama 
of the Osaka Asahi (Osaka Morning Sun) can bear 
witness. When the question of sending troops to 
Siberia came up, he — plain, ordinary, unknowing editor 
and proprietor (or president) of the largest newspaper 
in Japan — dared to say that he didn't approve of this 
expedition. And he said it without honorifics. Well, 
did his "dummy editor" just quietly go to jail? Alas! 
things have changed in the Land of the Rising Sun. 
There is now a group of young ruffians called the soshi 
whose patriotism knows no bounds. They will die for 
their Emperor and the government — even if they have 
to take some erring Nipponese along with them for 
judgment before the divine ancestors. And so these 
soshi, young and sprightly, made an attack on the 
venerable Mr. Maruyama, beat him up as far as 
their courage held out, and went their ways. Mr. 
Maruyama had them arrested. A number of them were 
found "guilty" and sentenced to three years' imprison- 
ment. And when all the form was duly carried out and 
all the available honorifics exhausted to soothe the 
injured feelings of Mr. Maruyama (his bones needed 
some more substantial balm) — their sentence was 
stayed on promise of good behavior. Considering that 
their organization is fostered by the government, one 
need not exert much mental energy to decide on the 
meaning of good. 

This occurred under the Ministry of Count Terauchi. 



A CASUAL REMARK 405 

Months went by. Count Terauchi resigned on account 
of ' ' illness. ' ' Whether it was a physical or political com- 
plaint no one took the trouble to diagnose. But Mr. 
Hara, the man of the people, became Prime Minister, 
and one of the first things he promised was relief from 
unfair press censorship. As in the case of the word 
*'good," however, the definition of unfair is problemat- 
ical. The first thing Premier Hara did was to follow in 
his predecessor's footsteps, as a very cautious politician 
should. His gray hairs and swarthy complexion are 
not without just reason for their existence. 

The editor of the Osaka Asahi was assaulted during 
the Terauchi administration. Mr. Hara, shortly after 
his investiture, asked that editor to come to Tokyo for 
a ''chat" and received a "voluntary" promise that his 
disloyal attitude would not appear again. During the 
Terauchi administration, an issue of The Japan Chronicle 
in Kobe was suppressed for reprinting from The North- 
China Daily News a reference to the famous Twenty-one 
Demands; during the first months of Mr. Hara's 
Ministry the editor of the little Kobe Herald was sen- 
tenced to six months' imprisonment and five hundred 
yen fine for reprinting from The Pekin Gazette an article 
by Mr. Putnam Weale in which a casual reference was 
made to the Emperor as being * ' inexperienced. ' ' During 
the rice riots which precipitated the downfall of Terau- 
chi, mention of them was at first prohibited; in Hara's 
day, now that Korea has taken to rioting on a large 
scale, The Japan Chronicle says, ''The suppression of 
the press has hindered the government from knowing 
what is going on, though it knew long before the present 
trouble broke out that it was brewing, for it issued instruc- 
tions that nothing was to he mentioned on the subject ^ 
And on March 14th last The Japan Advertiser (Tokyo) 
was suppressed for reprinting a manifesto from Japanese 
socialists to socialists in Europe protesting against Jap- 



4o6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

anese troops being sent to Siberia and expressing sym- 
pathy with the Russian revolution. The sentence said to 
have caused the trouble was, "The Mikado's mailed fist 
has fallen heavily upon the Japanese proletariat." 

In 1 91 8 Baron Goto, then the Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, addressing a convention of governors which is 
regularly called in Tokyo, let slip a bit of advice on the 
matter of their duties to the state. He made reference 
to the increase in the number of suppressions of news- 
papers and emphasized the necessity of the governors 
using their influence to "guide the press." He made 
some very open statements besides, which brought down 
upon him the wrath of newspaper dom. He was com- 
pelled to retract, which he did indirectly. But one of 
the Tokyo journals — The Yomiuri — went to some 
lengths to show that in Japan journalism is feared 
much more than it is respected. It urged that Japanese 
journalists, receiving special treatment, should also show 
themselves worthy of it. The general cry against the 
Japanese press is that it out -yellows our yellow journals. 
But there is this to be said in its defense: considering 
that scandal and libel go unpunished, while a reference 
to the Twenty-one Demands on China meets with 
suppression, what can be expected? 

The amusing part of all this suppression is that while 
permanent periodicals and books must be passed upon 
before they can be published, newspapers, when sup- 
pressed, have already passed out to their subscribers. 
This is especially true of papers published in English. 
But the fear on the part of the Japanese seems to be more 
that the news will go abroad than that it will affect the 
natives. 

The foreigner in Japan, however, finds that his way 
is fairly clear before him. Though English is read by 
many Japanese, the government feels that the mass 
of its subjects is sufficiently screened against infection 



"DANGEROUS THOUGHTS'* 407 

with real western thought by the vernacular. Language 
is indeed a Chinese Wall between Japan and its friends 
of the outer world. Yet, when one least expects it one 
finds amazing surprises. I have seen what seemed to 
me a most liberal selection of books on all subjects, such 
as the Lije oj August Bebel, Lassalle, etc., at the Kobe 
Higher Commercial School library. But Mr. A. M. 
Pooley's book, Japan at the Cross Roads, has been pro- 
hibited from sale or distribution in Japan. President 
Wilson's speeches were censored even while Japan was 
professing a great love of democracy. And I have since 
learned that books unfavorable are bought up from 
American book-stores by Japanese agents. A gentleman 
in New York, prominent because of his pro-Chinese 
leanings tells me that the moment his name appeared 
signed to a letter criticizing Japan, several years ago, his 
Japan Chronicle stopped coming to him. The govern- 
ment allows general criticisms to float about, but all 
reference to the Emperor must be in the nature of 
reverence. The slightest suggestion of criticism likely 
to reflect upon the divine nature of the Tenno is still as 
taboo as though there still were czars and kaisers snugly 
on their thrones. 

Intellectual life in Japan is no **dark Russia'* to the 
foreigner. To the native, ''dark Russia" must be 
unknown. According to statistics given out by the 
Director of the Police Affairs Bureau, there were 1,927 
suppressions under the Okuma Ministry (19 14-16); 
under the Terauchi Ministry (191 6- 17), 391. What 
it has been under the present Minister is not yet to hand. 
These are not all cases of curtailment of the newspapers, 
but include art and the movies. 

This brief survey may give the impression that liberty 
of the press is unknown in Japan. Not at all. One 
may say what one likes, providing one doesn't hit upon 
something the government doesn't like. Democracy 



4o8 JAPAN—REAL AND IMAGINARY 

was so overwhelmingly self-assertive during the war that 
it could not but reach the ears of Japan. But it was 
passed off as a foreign importation. It may be good 
enough for such countries as America, but for Japan 
it is not necessary. Rather, Japan has been a democ- 
racy from Jimmu Tenno's time, it is alleged. A few 
socialists are arrested in Kyoto for publishing and dis- 
tributing some pamphlets. The latest reports are that 
socialist post -cards have suddenly and mysteriously ap- 
peared, throwing the officials into general consternation. 
Thus it will be seen that, suppressions notwithstanding, 
*' dangerous thoughts" are filtering into the country. 

Those of us who hope for a better understanding be- 
tween Japan and the great West (especially America) 
know that it will come about only when uncensored 
news and opinion with regard to the domestic and 
foreign relations of these two countries will be fact and 
not merely the doctored-up and glossed-over emanations 
which are now creating utter confusion among us. The 
number of publications subsidized, encouraged, and dis- 
tributed is legion. Talking to the manager of one of 
the publishing houses in New York I was told that the 
Japanese government bought, as a subsidy, 800 copies 
of a book his firm published. And since Japan bought 
out Reuter's Agency and established the Kokusai Tsu- 
shinsha the government has had control over all news 
to and from Japan. 




XXVIII 

EXPRESSION 

Drama and Art 

NE frequently hears the remark among 
foreigners in Japan that it is just as well, 
especially for women, that they do not 
understand what is being said to them as 
they pass or what the point of the humor 
is at the theater which has caused such an outburst of 
laughter. Vulgarity is to be met with as unexpectedly 
in certain quarters as politeness and decency are certain 
in others. Especially on the stage. As with us, acting 
and loose living have been almost synonymous terms, 
regardless of what cleanliness and decency may be found 
in that profession. In Japan the position of the actor 
has been, until very recently, even much lower than with 
us. Literally, the word shibai (theater) means sitting 
on a lawn or grass-plot, and was used to signify the prim- 
itive theater — that is, actors would perform from the 
river banks and be observed by the upper classes from 
their pavilions above. Now there was more than mere 
physical position in this arrangement. The actors 
during the Tokugawa period were treated very poorly. 
They came from the social element known as kawara- 
monOy the vagrants and homeless wanderers who lived 
under the bridges upon the kawara (river banks). Until 
the Meiji era, when all class distinction was legally 
abolished, they were not allowed to marry any but 



410 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

kawaramono. And that is why all the theaters are 
generally situated near the banks of the rivers. Mina- 
miza, the largest theater in Kyoto to-day, stands right 
upon the east bank of the Kamogawa, and the Shurak- 
wan of Kobe is on the spot which was formerly the 
bank of the Minatogawa. The former is the direct 
descendant from the old kawara theater. Some of the 
modern actors are likewise quite likely the offspring of 
kawara actors, and even the famous Danjiro the ninth 
was a kawaramono. Vagrants as they were, it is easy 
to realize they would pick up an understanding of human 
nature and indifference to established form, together 
with stories and happenings which would make them the 
delight of the dull stay-at-home Japanese. Even to- 
day it is amazing to see how long natives will sit upon 
the floor of a cheap theater and listen to the droll stories 
which the story-teller reels off without end, with but 
here and there a silly attempt at mimicry. 

Why the actor should have been forced into the class 
of butchers, leather-tanners, removers of night-soil, and 
geta merchants is too complex a problem for the student 
of things Japanese. Except, perhaps, that the women- 
degrading Oriental felt that for a man to take to enter- 
taining in the fashion of the geisha was too mean and 
vulgar to be tolerated. Yet in the classic No, which in 
art and beauty transcends many a western histrionic 
accomplishment, no woman is ever allowed to take part. 

The popularity of actors to-day knows no bounds. 
The fortunate ones become the idols of the geisha and 
others who vie with one another in the presentation of 
stenciled curtains which are drawn to and fro across the 
stage to the edification of the populace. During the 
influenza epidemic a millionaire died, leaving a famous 
actress, his mistress, in distress. She "suicided her- 
self," as Japanese say, asking that she be buried with 
her lover. All Japan was in consternation as to whether 



THE CLASSIC NO 411 

her wish should be respected or not. They compro- 
mised, burying her at a distance, but putting her lover's 
picture in her grave. 

I am now seven thousand miles away from Japan. 
All about me is the clatter of typewriters and the grinding 
of motor-cars and trains. Yet I need but shut my eyes 
and forthwith the melancholy sweetness of the No 
murmurs within me. Nothing I have brought away 
with me from the Far East beckons me to return more 
than that classic visualization of emotion. For nothing 
in all Japan is more of the very heart and soul of that 
select few which in every country is its everlasting glory, 
than is this ancient untrimmed dramatic art. The No 
is not the art of the people — yet it is not the expression 
of the aristocracy. It is the outpouring of the purest 
sort of emotion, of the simplest types of human experi- 
ence, highly individualized, yet set firm in convention. 

Its presentation is absolutely pure. The stage-setting 
is of the essence of simplicity. No people in the wide 
world know better than the Japanese how to make two 
walls and a floor effective, with the sky for a canopy. 
The pine-tree painted on the walls is the only decoration 
other than the costumes. There is no curtain, except 
that which hangs over the door at the end of a long and 
narrow passageway leading to the stage from the left. 

As that curtain is opened the first actor appears. 
His movements are constrained. He makes short steps, 
seldom more than the length of a foot ; he gHdes, never 
raising his feet from the floor; he hesitates as though he 
were depicting the progress of time, not the passing of an 
incident. 

In the meantime the singers, flutists, and drummers 
have been reciting the prologue to the No. When the 
actor arrives at the prescribed place on the stage he 
begins to tell who he is and what he is after. Other 
characters appear in the same stately way. Their con- 



412 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

versation reveals the story, the singers bringing in ex- 
traneous matter in the intervals. None of them just 
speaks ; everything is told in a deep, bass, chanting tone 
which is far richer than the music of the West. 

As in the singing so in the dancing. The movement 
is slow and constrained. There is httle dancing. For 
instance, when a character is on a long journey he may 
take five minutes to cross the small stage. Sometimes 
the actors become more rapid as they advance to the 
end of their part, but never take on the abandon of the 
Greek classic dance. 

Whereas with us art yields to the impulse toward dis- 
integration and contains itself within the centrifugal 
limits of physical law, here the sense of motion, the 
world of flight, is brought within the most unyielding of 
limitations without actually losing any of the essence of 
swiftness. A comparison can be made in the velocity 
of the earth, which is almost visible to us, and the 
velocity of a comet, which seems stationary. The 
first brings us our day and night; the second has no 
such effect. Our art has its cycles: the No seems to 
have its orbit. 

We go to the opera and enjoy it even though we may 
not understand the language in which it is sung. Not 
for its word-thoughts, but for its pictures and spirit are 
we audience. So with the No. The language of the 
No is archaic and little understood even by the well- 
educated Japanese. Some of the sounds are indeed 
harsh and meaningless, as, for instance, the ejaculations 
of the drummers. But after a while one comes to want 
these harsher sounds together with the more finely beau- 
tiful as one wants a coarser thread beneath the surface 
pattern of a piece of tapestry. So, too, one wants the 
relaxation of the farce which always enters between 
the three No dramas given at a single performance. 
The language of this Kyogen, or farce, is more simple. 



THE LAST WORD IN COSTUME 413 

I could almost understand it myself. The action is 
more rapid; in fact, the comedian hops about the stage. 
But the language of the No, being so ancient and so 
difficult, gives one the feeling of the birth of thought and 
the connection or relation of music and pure sound to 
thought. If fully understood and closely followed, 
there is no reason why music should not be as definite 
as words. 

The No is rich in possibilities for interpretation. I 
found that in some cases knowledge of the story was a 
drawback. For instance, take the Jo-no-mai, or Plum 
Dance. I could not see where there was even the 
slightest relationship between the acting and the thing 
it meant to depict. Had I not been told, I should have 
enjoyed the whole because of its inventiveness, the cos- 
tumes, and the motion. But to see a masked face pro- 
truding from a costume of marvelous color harmony and 
to be told that it is a flower dancing taxes my credulity 
and sense of balance too much. 

The No costume is by all means the last word in dress. 
The blaze of color, the crowding in of fabrics obliterating 
the form but creating form — ^it is without peer. The 
man is lost beneath his art, emerging as a new creation. 
From his right arm may hang a sleeve of soft orange 
tints; from his left, gold lattice effect on a blue back- 
ground. The skirt, or trousers, may be of gold on pink; 
streaming hair from beneath a black cap; tremendous 
embroidered obi or girdle; snow-white tabi or cloth 
shoes. The hands are always rigid, the fingers straight. 
And when he swings open the fan with his right hand he 
encompasses the universe. Frequently the actor stands 
in long trousers which drag out behind him as though 
he were on his knees. Or he is masked as a woman. 

There is one feature of the No which is the essence of 
the Japanese terpsichorean art, and that is the fan. 
We talk of Japan spoiling such western art as she has 



414 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

attempted to imitate, but how does it come about that 
the fan, which plays such an exquisite part in their art 
and Hfe, should have been so degraded in the West — 
degraded to a purely utilitarian office, that of keeping 
overdanced ladies cool? 

The quivering fan represents in the No world what the 
woman's hand is in the human world. Every No actor 
has a fan, and the way in which it is to be handled 
is as great an art as the music and dress. Sometimes 
it is supposed to be a mirror, sometimes a sword. But 
I think that it is more truly the outstretched palm of the 
authority of art hushing the seething multitude of im- 
pulses which crowd in upon the observer. 

Though all these outer manifestations of this art are 
in themselves sufficiently worthy, still, when the motif, 
or plot, has to do with human relationships, knowledge 
of the story is essential. I have roughly noted the 
characters and actions of a few No, to give the reader a 
more vivid picture of its dramatic force. 

A girl enters dressed as a priest, in black over-kimono 
with gilt breastplates. She prays. A child comes on, 
carrying a silk garment. Two men enter, notice the 
garment, and commence to quarrel over it. One recog- 
nizes the child and takes it aside. He is a buyer of 
people. The other appeals to the priest for the release 
of the child. The offer of the garment is meant to sym- 
bolize the means of escape from the sorrows of this 
world. The priest pleads for the child and throws the 
garment at the slaveholder's feet. The priest departs. 
The men give way, though not without anger. The 
patience of the priest is beautiful. Satisfied, the two 
slaveholders step to the side, pick up long bamboo poles 
used to push their boat, and, without any other setting, 
represent a departure on the water as realistically as has 
ever been done on a stage. 



SOME NO THEMES 415 

In Naniwa (Osaka) there lives a very poor couple. 
The woman goes to the capital to earn some money and 
there becomes the concubine of the lord. Her husband 
remains very poor, earning what he can by selling ashi 
(a kind of grass) which grows on the banks of the Yodo- 
gawa. The wife becomes very rich, and, remembering 
her husband, returns to Naniwa with several retainers to 
try to find him. Reaching the city, she makes inquiries 
everywhere, but no one knows anything of him. She is 
troubled. Just then a grass-peddler comes along, and 
she recognizes him. In the end, after sitting for some 
time and rehearsing their experiences under the plum- 
tree, he is given better clothes and together they return 
to where the lord's castle is, and become husband and 
wife again. 

From a student of the No I learned that it was often 
the custom in Japan, and is even so to-day, for the wife 
in such circumstances to go to the castle and play with 
her children for part of the day, returning to her legiti- 
mate husband. And everybody seems to remain satis- 
fied with the arrangement. 

An old mother enters and seats herself at the waki- 

bashi (bridgeside). She is dressed in checkered kimono, 

very plain. She says nothing. Presently the shite y the 

hero or chief character, enters with black drum-shaped 

hat, black kimono, white hakama (pantaloons), white 

tabi, and the inevitable fan. The lapel of his kimono is 

made of brown cloth. He commences a sad, dirgelike 

recitation, during which he does not notice his mother 

sitting at the other comer. The mother listens and 

speaks up in most touching tones. Though the voice is 

that of a man (for no woman is ever allowed to play in 

the No) its emotional quality is full of feminine lament 

and longing, as beautiful an appeal as any piece of music 

I have ever heard. All the painful tragedy of such 
27 



4i6 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

meetings is in their songs, more forcefully portrayed 
than in any western theater, for, though mother and 
son approach each other, they do not embrace, as 
would we. Is it not the tragedy of a mother's life 
(and a son's, too) when age has raised the barrier between 
them which even an actual embrace could not break 
down? She pleads, but her power to persuade him has 
gone. Her ability to lead and guide him is lost for ever. 
She can only plead. Her reward is in being listened to, 
but he remains set in his determination to avenge 
himself. 

The chorus comes in as a world foundation to each 
man's regret, a universal admission of like suffering and 
like incapacity to affect the ways of mankind. He is 
the first to speak after the chorus finishes; then, as he is 
about to leave, he turns on the passageway and touches 
his hat, moves in a pace and turns again, while the 
mother stands staring after, half shielding her eyes 
with the back of her hand. Slowly she follows after 
him — but he is gone. 

A little boy with a sword comes in first, dressed in 
purple and gold. Then comes a priest in black, another 
in gold and white, a third in a profusion of color, and so a 
fourth. They sing a Buddhist hymn, then crouch; the 
little boy makes an announcement in a boyish, high- 
pitched voice, and then they rise and repeat the chorus. 
The fixed, rigid control seems to hold in check a moun- 
tain of emotion, while the splendor and lavishness of 
color are released of that same emotion in ways of 
unselfish, selfless beauty. 

The warrior enters, dressed in white, with under- 
garments of soft color and gold. His sword shows his 
station, while in his right hand is a broom of rough 
twigs. He sweeps, stamps his feet, and, suddenly recog- 
nizing the little boy, rushes at him, but is warded off by 



REVENGE OF A NARIKIN 417 

the chief priest. The men argue, the priest partially 
disrobes, revealing a beautiful plaid undergarment. 
He defies and challenges the intruder, who draws back 
slowly and beats a hasty retreat. The priest pursues a 
step or two, speaks of the samurai, and calls upon the 
soldier there, who undergoes a change of costume on the 
open stage. The priest chants beautifully. The soldier 
has now thrown off his outer garments, revealing his 
brilliant armor; the priests also draw their swords; there 
is a pitched battle in which two flee and one is slain. 
He is covered from the audience with a cloth and rolls 
off stage. The priest is triumphant. 

In the early days the No was essentially the pastime 
of the nobility. Every lord or daimyo had a stage of 
his own and a subsidized cast. The cost of costumes 
and masks was simply tremendous, some three hundred 
masks being required for a complete No outfit. The 
revolution of 1868 came very near obliterating the 
art, but, according to Ernest Fenollosa, it was preserved 
by one man, Umewaka Minoru, who succeeded in re- 
viving interest in it some three years after. Since, the 
passion for the No has widened, doubtless to its great 
advantage. From time immemorial its secrets have 
been passed down from fathers to sons, just as the secrets 
of any art or craft are handed down. But in the days 
following the revolution not only did the No pass out 
of the hands of the direct descendants, but to-day 
narikin of no blood-connection have, through their vast 
wealth, succeeded in breaking down this exclusiveness. 
So in that way art is becoming democratized in Japan. 

While Europe was doing its best to destroy its finest 
works of art, a Japanese narikin was calmly buying up 
all sorts of paintings at whatever price was asked. His 
judgment, according to reports, was by no means con- 
temptible. He picked out the best — and not merely 



4i8 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

from a monetary standpoint. As he made his purchase 
he had it stored in England against the day when, the 
war being over, he could take it back with him to Japan. 
That was Japan retaliating for the despoliation by white 
connoisseurs of her greatest works of art while civil 
strife was creating havoc. Almost all of Japan's fine 
art-works are to be found in the British Museum. 
Japan as yet has no real National Gallery. Artistically, 
Japan is still as closed to the world as ever. What re- 
mains to her of her treasures are locked within the 
godowns of millionaires, shut away from the eyes of man 
and only on occasion, perhaps once in a lifetime, are 
they brought forth. I was fortunate enough to attend 
a small exhibition of Japanese kakemono (hanging scrolls) 
in Kobe possible only on rare occasions. There were 
hangings there which had not seen daylight in twenty 
years. But democracy in art is invading Japan, and has 
taken form in a movement for the erection of a great 
national treasure-house for permanent exhibits. 

In the meantime there is the Bunten, the Japanese yearly 
exhibit of the latest works. It opens in Tokyo and is 
then moved to Kyoto, and affords an exceptional oppor- 
tunity of watching the progress of art. Half the section 
is devoted to oil-paintings, and the other half to Japanese 
screens and prints. The paintings must seem to the Japan- 
ese what the futurist and cubist paintings were to the 
West. But I failed to find any unusual note of strength 
or originality. They struck me as purely imitative. 

The commonplace is seldom used as subject in art. 
For us nudity is covered so securely that our tendencies 
are toward its portrayal. But nudity in Japan has 
always been so common that no one pays much attention 
to it, except in the purely obscene. In all my attention 
to art I came across only one figure of a nude woman, 
and that at the exhibition in Kobe, mentioned above. 
It was a woman about to enter the bath. Her back 



THE BUNTEN 419 

was to the observer. Japanese women are so indifferent 
to showing their breasts and nursing their babies in pubHc 
that that found no place in their art. In consequence their 
handUng of the nude struck me as crude and imitative. 

But at the Bunten the breast came in for considerable 
display. Furthermore, I noticed that, in imitation of the 
languid expressions so typical of the western woman in 
art, these Japanese painters have given the same melan- 
choly touches to their women's faces. They have for- 
gotten that undisturbed resignation which sets off the 
Japanese woman's face from every other in the world. 
They have substituted indolent longing for resignation; 
restlessness for calmness. 

None has so far excelled the Japanese in giving the 
fire of life to art. The outstanding painting in the 
whole exhibit was that of two Koreans. The two white 
figures were bent against the wind, while all the trees 
and growths, and the clothes on the human bodies were 
giving way before the wind. The contrast between the 
pliancy, the yielding of nature before nature, and the 
obstinate resistance of man to nature was a new con- 
ception forcefully depicted. 

As is only to be expected, there is a division of opinion 
on the value of these efforts. The conservatives show 
an undercurrent of vindictiveness which is purely na- 
tionalistic and not art criticism. Some of the critics 
in their comparisons of native with western art forgot 
their art altogether in their endeavors to exalt their 
own and deride the foreign products. ** Should any 
foreign artist have painted it," said one, "it would be 
very unpleasant to see." One merely sets a statement 
like this off by itself, squints at it, and says nothing. 
Art knows no such limitations. It is well for nations to 
glory in their artistic results. It is well that they should 
"raise temples to art." But they must be careful lest 
their galleries turn to tombs instead of temples. 



420 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

They have opera in Japan, also, and an imperial 
orchestra. Western music is making slow progress. 
Because he disapproved of the character of one of his 
musicians, a Japanese narikin withdrew his support to 
the orchestra and it had to disband. The phonograph, 
however, is making its way into the inner regions 
of the Empire, and one foreigner informs me that 
he sells classic records as far from the ports as Na- 
goya. 

One is not at all satisfied with western art in Japan, 
any more than one familiar with original European forms 
can enjoy many of their American manifestations. So 
one turns away from the ugly modem buildings and the 
screeching western music and languid, westernized 
Japanese maidens and plays with what fancies the past 
in Japan affords. 

I was sitting in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel, alone. 
In the corner, his shoulder leaning against the wall, stood 
a weird little creature. Full of disdainful cynicism, his 
eyes looking with bewilderment, yet as though peeping 
from behind a shelter, he caught me by surprise. When 
first I met this little person I thought he was alive and 
laughed in fellowship with him. I felt as though out of 
all the people present at the hotel he was the only one 
with whom I wanted to be pals. But he didn't seem to 
know how to take my boldness, and in went his shoulder 
an imaginary inch farther into the corner. I noticed 
that he held a black ball in his red-lacquered hands, and 
it seemed to me it must be the very world I live on. And 
his cynicism and doubt became clear to me. Why 
should he bear the burden of my world? I thought. 
This sympathy in thought brought him a couple of 
imaginary inches out of his comer. I felt I could report 
progress. But here I had to go slowly, for he was rather 
sensitive to forced sympathy. I was afraid of losing 
him, but, having gone so far, I couldn't help going on 



IMPORTED LITTLE DEVILS 421 

with it. This time I got up from my easy-chair and met 
him part way. From close by I could see he had trouble 
enough to bear — what with only three clawlike fingers 
to each hand in which to hold a world. A little fire- 
demon was dancing about with his four legs in the locks 
of flame-hair on his head. With full hands, this was 
worse than insult. This thought won from him the 
following unspoken remark: **Yes, I call that treachery. 
Don't you? All I have to protect myself with against 
the flame coming lower is a heavy breastplate of fraudu- 
lent iron and a sulu, or skirt of leaves. Fine comfort 
that for an overburdened fire-god, isn't it? My knees 
have become knotted from knocking and my legs stiff 
and bony, and all the satisfaction I can get is digging my 
three claws into the flame-source upon which I stand. 
Nice thing for a creator to do. I'd get another job if I 
weren't too old now. At my age one mustn't complain." 

By this time I caught sight of the other fellow, like- 
wise hiding in the corner on the other side of the fire- 
place. He stood fairly shrieking with soundless laughter 
because he had locked a dragon's head against his hip 
and held the tail streaming over the left shoulder in his 
left hand. Really a funny situation for a dragon to be 
in. I laughed, too, but it seemed funny that at the same 
time a similar little creature of a dragon was making 
fim of an ambidextrous freak from the top of his head. 
Somebody had eaten his brown eye out, poor fellow. 
His scaly belly and arms were his only protection, unless 
one were to regard the leaves on his thighs as such. 
What a funny devil ! 

*'I'd go back home," said the other devil, **if I weren't 
too old now." I looked at him again, wondering where 
home was. It then occurred to me that he was indeed 
an importation, as is well-nigh all the art in Japan, and 
I laughed to myself. A foreigner! An importation! 




XXIX 

CONCERNING JAPANESE PERSONALITY 

[ERETOFORE I have been treating things 
and places and individuals. In this chapter 
I shall attempt the more difficult and per- 
haps hopeless task of generalization. At 
most a traveler meets a thousand individ- 
uals in a country. Even if he has watched closely the 
trend of events, how does he know the motives which 
precipitated them? Which one of us, seeing smoke, 
would be safe in saying why the fire was started? 

Japan is in a state of transition, and all our observa- 
tions of yesterday are somewhat belated "I told you 
so's." Most of my impressions were written during the 
early period of my residence. The first of this book 
gives account of what I saw during the first six months. 
The rest is the Japan I saw after the morning glow had 
merged with the full sunlight. However, I cannot re- 
member a time when I did not see both the good and the 
bad in this complex little world. 

The thing the observer resents is not that he finds 
both good and bad, but the bold assumption of per- 
fection, a shrinking from acknowledgment of this mixt- 
ure. One becomes impatient with the laggard waiters, 
the cramped disharmonies of modem Japanese life, the 
affectation and striving, the bartering of fallacies for 
fame. Everywhere the resultant discord between the 
old and the new Japan is evident. Everywhere the in- 
congruous mixtures of modem manufacture with primi- 



REVERSION TO TYPE 423 

tive handiwork are wracking the bones and the spirit of 
Japan. Whether these tendencies will finally vanquish 
old Japan it is too early to predict. Whether the result 
will be mutation to an entirely different species japon- 
icus it is wise to contemplate, but wiser to keep from 
professing. 

The strangest thing withal is to what a slight extent 
westernization has really affected Japan. Almost all the 
friends the foreigner makes are people who have spent 
from ten to fifteen years in the Occident — the early 
years of their lives. The wife of one was born in America 
and did not see Japan till she was nearly twenty. She 
is American in a repressed sort of way. Her voice is 
American, and some of her facial expressions are. 
Yet since her coming to the home of her ancestors she 
has been Japanese entirely. How resigned a reversion 
to type! Had her birth and rearing in America eradi- 
cated her inheritance, no Japanese custom would be 
able to bind her. A Chinese wom.an with such acquired 
characteristics would in the same position influence at 
least a limited circle within her new sphere, as did 
Princess Der Ling after her coming to China from the 
first nineteen years of her life in Europe. She was a 
dynamic force in the very midst of one of the most 
crystallized forms of Orientalism. She even effected 
changes in the habits of the Empress Dowager. 

But not so the Japanese woman. Nor the man, either, 
for that matter. Though the germ of westemism takes 
hold somewhat, still he is through and through Japanese. 
It is impossible completely to Occident alize him. True 
that the white man is as unyielding when it comes to 
being Orientalized and that in consequence little blame 
need attach itself to the Japanese. But it is consider- 
ably more reactive in the case of the Japanese. He 
takes on the protective coloring of his environment easily 
enough. He manifests certain traits peculiar to his new 



424 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

environment, but they disappear almost immediately 
after his return. I have met a number of Japanese who 
told me that they intend to carry on their business in 
American ways or quit Japan again. But soon enough 
that is forgotten. And in this chapter I shall point to 
some of the reasons why this is so. 

Sociability is one of the most living characteristics of 
the Japanese. When they meet you they don't know 
what to do to show you how pleased they are. Their 
mixing proclivities are marvelously pronounced. In 
my residence of two years in Australia and New Zealand 
I did not receive a hundredth part of the kindliness 
— though it was profuse enough — accorded me during 
the first four months of my stay in Japan. The Japanese 
interest in my comfort and happiness was remarkable. 
Some observers have attributed this to a well-devised 
scheme of showing the West their best side for purposes 
of "advertisement." And to a certain extent this is 
beyond doubt. But it is deeper than that. It is the 
latent ceremonial natures of these people, their love of 
crowds, and dread of loneliness, or what under another 
head I have called their communal make-up, or clannish- 
ness. You have asked one to go somewhere with you, 
and presently you are in a crowd, you have a retinue. 
This spirit is obvious to the most casual observer. They 
ask you to dinner and soon you have a dinner-party 
with geisha and comrades galore. Their houses are 
built with thin paper partitions because they enjoy 
this mingling even when they seek privacy. It extends 
itself even to their prisons, where what we call solitary 
confinement is virtually unknown. 

This sociability has its expression in the courtesy for 
which Japanese have been so far-famed. Self-assertion, 
which often compels a man to be discourteous, is as 
foreign to the Japanese as their kind of courtesy is to us. 
One soon learns to discount Japanese politeness, simply 



COURTESY 425 

because it is manifest even where one would really appre- 
ciate discourtesy and honor it. One does not like to 
associate with a menial. Yet their perpetual smiling 
and fawning, though not meant as such, but simply as 
an expression of their conceptions of form, leaves one 
with the sense of having dealt with inferiors. On this 
account is there so much bullying from the foreigners 
which I shall refer to later in this chapter. 

Japanese courtesy is an outgrowth of Japanese feu- 
dalism. It has left its impress on the Japanese character 
to such an extent that there is much less differentiation 
of the sexes than is found in the West. Though in detail 
there is a great contrast between the clothes of the man 
and the woman in Japan, still in essence they are the 
same — the skirt and the kimono. But where there is 
even less distinction is in their social status. Wherever 
rigid social cleavage is found between the sexes it seems 
that one sex is more apt to take on the characteristics of 
the other. In America, for example, where men and 
women are free in their social relations, for a man to 
show any signs of effeminacy would earn for him the 
term of mollycoddle. But in Japan, where the life of the 
woman is so distinct from that of the man, it strikes me 
that the man assumes feminine traits with much less 
fear of social consequences. 

Just as the court fool was free to be as radical as he 
pleased in Europe so the geisha in Japan. They were 
the mainstay of a political system which for hundreds 
of years never tolerated the development of the in- 
dividual. During the Tokugawa era intrigue and 
treachery had been developed to such a fine art that no 
man's thoughts were his own. And men turned to one 
of the safest outlets for their spirits — the public woman. 
Even the leader of the heroic Forty-seven Ronin is 
alleged to have used her as a blind to his intentions. 
And even earlier, when Hideyoshi, the great general, 



426 JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 

wanted to show the besieged and stubborn Baron 
Ujimasu that he could wait for a surrender, he ordered 
entertainments with geisha to take place within his camp, 
to the delight of most, and the disgust of some, of his 
warriors. The decline and fall of empire is often at- 
tributed to dissoluteness and immorality; but as much, 
if not more, is it due to the suppression of thought, the 
fear of rulers of the ideas of their subjects. 

The political suppression of the man created the geisha ; 
and the geisha brought about the suppression of the 
woman. The Japanese mother is a lovable creature 
indeed, meek and unthinking, patient and self-sacrificing. 
But humble, insignificant, helpless as the Japanese 
woman may be, degraded she decidedly is not. Within 
her own sphere she is supreme. The widowed mother 
obeys her eldest son even if he is only a child; but the 
old man worships his mother long after she is dead. Yet 
to this very day she is not allowed to attend any political 
meeting. 

The thing moves round in a vicious circle, and ever 
and ever the circle narrows, the scope becomes limited. 
Japanese life is indeed a pyramid, a cone, but imperi- 
alism moves round on the outside while the masses are 
on the inside. Every time humanity attempts to rise 
it finds its space limited and narrowing, and free as men 
may be within that compass, they gradually sink into 
submissiveness. With sociability an expression of the 
clan-spirit of the Empire, and courtesy and politeness 
circumscribed by fear and form, submissiveness finally 
breaks out in various forms of fanaticism and hysteria. 
I have often felt that were a Japanese ordered to kiss his 
wife five times a day, it would be done with the regu- 
larity of an electric clock. I have often been amazed 
at the childishness of the Japanese in their various forms 
of amusement. They make children of themselves in 
their games with the geisha, clapping hands and shouting 



SUBMISSIVENESS 427 

in ways western men would regard as ultra-feminine. 
Go to the amusement districts of the large cities and 
you will see at all times crowds of young men from eigh- 
teen to twenty -five, bent over small concrete pools of 
water about six feet by four by six inches deep in which 
tiny little fish swim about. Over these the men will 
stand for hours with eighteen-inch rods and four-foot 
lines, fishing. Nor is this childishness limited to the 
poor. Japanese poetry, beautiful and expressive as it 
is, lacks vitality, lacks force, and seems to me to be again 
the manifestation of this imperial suppression under 
which Japan has lived for centuries. 

Just as this affects the status of the Japanese woman 
so it does other things in Japan. One is inclined to 
think of the Japanese as by nature cruel, because of his 
neglectfulness. He is not by nature cruel; he is obe- 
dient. Obedience often results in cruelty and comes 
from weakness rather than strength. Were the Japanese 
atheists, and not merely without religion, they might be 
a most gentle and most kind race. Their hardness comes 
from lack of positive conviction. 

I remember passing down a side-street one day where I 
saw a crowd pressing round a restaurant. Within was 
a husky fellow, raving furiously and staggering about. 
He was either drunk or insane. The people about him 
in the room did not once reply to his ranting, but looked 
silently at him in a kindly spirit. They were waiting 
for authority (a policeman) to intervene. It was 
remarkable. Half a dozen men continued at their 
business as though no quarrelsome drunkard were 
pouring volleys of threats upon them. Then the officer 
with his sword arrived. His presence was like oil on 
troubled waters. The insane man adjusted his tongue 
and his manners to the new situation with miraculous 
alacrity. The doors and wooden shutters were closed, 
the electric lamps from in front removed, and a mysteri- 



428 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

ous, awe-inspiring seal was set upon the place. I could 
not learn from any one the cause, but it seemed as 
though death had suddenly paralyzed the erstwhile 
living establishment. 

Hysteria among Japanese (especially women) is one 
of the most serious complaints in the Orient. Japanese 
are not always quiet and calm in the presence of strain 
and difficulty, for they are not all strong and free. Con- 
trasts and conflicts are always to be met. The danger is 
generally when they let themselves go. They have con- 
trolled themselves, or have been controlled, so long that 
when released rage is often blinding. 

It is natural to grieve. That civilization in its nu- 
merous forms has sought to veil the torments of the 
heart is often due to fear of further torture. It is never 
written that one mustn't show his grief — except, I think, 
where social conditions are unstable. The vigorous 
Maori in New Zealand tattooed his face so that his 
enemy would not know his fear. In rigorous Japan, 
where a samurai's face was as often as much as his life 
was worth, it is little wonder that he developed a "false- 
face." This selfsame Japanese, upon whom we some- 
times look as one not to be trusted because he does not 
show in his face what he harbors in his heart, is he who 
through ages of the severest subservience to daimyo 
or samurai learned how not to jeopardize his desired end 
by too frank a confession of his mood or impulse. Sub- 
ordination to the whims of his superiors engendered 
circuitous ways and traits. Knowing treachery — ^be- 
cause himself a past -master in it — to be at his elbow day 
and night, Hideyoshi several times disarmed it by hand- 
ing his sword to leyasu at the very moment he expected 
him to strike. Jack Lx)ndon in his Iron Heel shows 
that one can completely change one's physiognomy at 
will. In this light the Japanese spirit, which is their 
pride and the world's mystery, is easily explained. As 



HYSTERIA AND BRAVERY 429 

mysterious and inaccessible as is the Japanese mind, a 
little study will help one to detect the heart's impulse 
as readily as in any man. 

In all the "scare" talk about Japan's militarism — • 
essentially true from the bureaucratic angle — one must 
not lose sight of the basic character of the people. 
Japanese chauvinists try to impress the world with the 
word samurai as symbolic of something latent in the Nip- 
ponese breast. But it has now come to the point where 
Japan can no longer withhold the truth that distaste of 
the army is as prevalent in Japan as elsewhere. The 
number of young men who have themselves "doctored," 
starved, and bled to be found ineligible for service is 
increasing everywhere. That is because bushido, or 
the way of the soldier, is not as component a part of 
Japanese nature as they would have us believe. It 
must be remembered that soldiering was a class pro- 
fession and that it is only a matter of sixty years since the 
mass of men have had anything to do with war. Hide- 
yoshi prepared to send about 200,000 men in all to 
Korea. In the struggle between his son and leyasu, in 
which the greatest number of men ever massed in Japan 
at any one battle-field came in conflict, there were only 
about 150,000 all told. Military figures are hard to 
handle, for gross exaggerations were always reported by 
both sides. Of course the number of samurai in the 
country was much more than those concentrated at any 
one place. Yet military life in Japan was too severe 
for additions of wounded and disabled who returned to 
civil life to count for much. A man went into battle to 
die, and prisoners were scorned, though often taken. 
So that even if the number above were doubled it would 
only mean that half a million or more of men were samurai 
out of a population of some forty millions. Released from 
the hold the military clan still has upon the country, 
Japan would become as peace-loving as it ever was. 



430 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

One of the reasons Japanese journalists and politicians 
boastingly and sincerely put forward against the sending 
of troops to the European battle-fields was that Japanese 
soldiers do not know what it is to turn back, and that 
to send them to Europe where British and French sol- 
diers were advancing and retreating was not right. A 
Japanese soldier would not retreat. Yet there is any 
amount of historical evidence to the contrary, such as 
the case of Ishida Mitsunari, Governor of Lower Kyoto, 
Minister of Criminal Law and Administration, and at 
one time the right-hand man of Hideyoshi. Ishida 
exulted in being ready to become a prisoner, though 
planning always to escape. 

What that boast really signined was not exactly what 
the Japanese intended. It shows an absence of in- 
dividuality, a blind execution of order, a fanaticism which 
is happily dying out in the world. It is only half a cen- 
tury since that selfsame zeal spent itself in defense of a 
local daimyo against a contending daimyo in another 
section of the country. The national idealism, of which 
so much is heard, is after all only a recent affair, yet to- 
day the Japanese is lost in the pursuit of nationalism as 
blindly as he was in feudalism. The pitiable part of it 
is that that same enthusiasm can be used by whosoever 
is in power for good or evil, for there has as yet sprung up 
little counterbalancing force for individualism. 

The spirit now prevailing among the more idealistic 
is for mutual understanding between peoples. There 
are humanitarians in Japan, lovers of peace, unselfish 
and generous, healthful and courageous. But their 
efforts are largely nullified by chauvinists, who rely 
upon the vanity of the people for gaining their ends. 
Only vain people would have permitted themselves to 
accept with pride such sugar-coated nonsense as has 
been written about Japan. And they gloried in it. It 
is amazing that instead of resenting diminutives and 



D O 



S 



2 o 

w 
n 

•3 
w 

P) 
o 

u 

K! 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 






S 




1 ^fc^|^_^___^a|lf 







EXCLUSIVENESS 431 

adjectives such as were used in connection with Japan 
they should have taken them with reHsh. And now one 
cannot call their attention to a single inconvenience 
which they will not immediately defend with, "It is 
Japanese way," and think that that puts the stamp of 
perfection upon it. When morality is discussed they 
retort, "We don't need to be taught morality; we are 
naturally moral." There is a grain of truth in this. 
One Japanese writer on The Nightside of Japan says that 
foreigners bathe because they are dirty; Japanese, out 
of habit. 

This nationalism has become a mania with the Jap- 
anese. In fact, they are no more patriotic than any 
other people on earth; in attitude, they affect venera- 
tion beyond anything to be found anywhere in the world. 
The Japanese are still a very superstitious people at 
bottom, and that is why mikadoism can maintain so firm 
a hold upon them. The influenza is attributed to a 
double suicide, the girl seeking her lover taken from 
her two centuries ago bringing this disease to every door 
at which she makes her inquiry. Hence it is called 
after her, Osome-kaze, and during the early days of the 
epidemic people pasted slips of paper on their doors 
with the words, ''Hisamatsu rusu'' (Hisamatsu — your 
lover — is absent). Ghosts are still seen and heard, and 
the announcement of their having made a visit will 
ruin a bath-house financially. People still inoculate 
themselves against malaria, cholera, and other diseases 
by eating doyomochi or "twentieth day of the month of 
each season rice dough." One of the difficulties the 
authorities meet in the suppression of plague is the 
apathy and fear of the people. In this officialism, in a 
manner deservedly, meets its Waterloo, for were it less 
rigorous and more understanding of modem practice it 
would clean up the streets first and lay sewers and 
handle what cases come to it with more humanity. As 

28 



432 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

it is, having once tasted of ''paternal care," the people 
avoid it with fear. Thus, in the end, will the people 
come to look upon bureaucracy. 

Bureaucracy begets exclusiveness. Though by nature 
the Japanese are cordial and friendly, taught to regard 
themselves as superior to all people on earth, they have 
become exclusionists. They take you in, but you never 
become a member of the family. I have tried earnestly 
to obtain a grip. They are nice, poHte, and kind — but 
they never let themselves go. 

They place obstacles in the way of intermarriage 
which are, 'tis true, merely stumbling-blocks, but which 
make for confusion. As a consequence, the unions 
which result are seldom really desirable. I am speaking 
generally, but can be more specific. It is next to im- 
possible for foreigners to meet the better type of Jap- 
anese women. The result is that what unions do take 
place are more often casual and undesirable. In a sense 
the Japanese are justified, for the attitude of most 
foreigners who live in the ports is anything but pro- 
ductive of good will; and the comparison between 
many foreign women and the modest Japanese type 
results in a decision favorable to the latter. After 
having mixed almost exclusively with Japanese for four 
or five months I went one evening to a concert. The 
faults the Japanese see in us stood out glaringly to me, 
who had become more or less adjusted to the restraint 
and modesty of the little Japanese woman. There were 
four of them present, a rich contrast to the boldness and 
forwardness in dress, speech, and manner of the foreign 
women. In contrast to low necks and bare arms and 
skirts almost up to the knees were these four little 
Japanese girls, well-shaped heads and fine faces, dark 
skins with massive black hair, clothed in soft-colored 
kimonos, which utterly and completely obliterated their 
sex. But the consensus of opinion among foreigners in 



TIMIDITY 433 

Japan, who have dealings with other than scholars and 
diplomats, is that the Japanese woman is a species apart 
from the men. 

Unconsciously the Japanese are happy with the 
presence of the foreigner. They delight in him, and 
often make the way of the exile pleasant indeed. But 
in this it seems that they recognize in him a force for 
their own release. For five hundred years under the 
heel of usurping daimyo, out of touch with the person 
of the Emperor, who certainly was a symbol dear to 
them in former times, they seem to see in the foreigner 
a medium of escape. Mind you, it would be a shock to 
their pride if they were told so, and they would resent it 
deeply. They do not even allow themselves to think it, 
to admit it into consciousness. But it is there. 

Take, for instance, this incident. A neighbor of 
mine agreed with me that the calling for rickshaws at 
two and three o'clock in the morning was an imposi- 
tion. But his tendency was to let it go as others had 
done for years. At last he consented to come with me 
to make a complaint to the police. We met at the 
police station. Just outside the door he asked me for 
my card. I thought he would support it with his own. 
Not much. He presented mine only and spoke as 
though I alone were making the complaint — himself 
acting only as interpreter. He was obviously timid in 
the presence of the police, nor did he care to have the 
accused know he had voiced a complaint. He thus 
threw the whole responsibility upon my shoulders. I 
let him go on just to see how far he would carry it, and 
he left himself out of it completely. He felt that I, a 
foreigner, would have more weight in complaining than 
would he. 

I complained to my landlord that the open gutter in 
front of my house was clogged and the sewage from 
three or four neighbors gathered there. But he told me 



434 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

to complain to the city authorities. It was only after 
I laughed at that, saying that I as a foreigner should 
not be asked to complain for him, the native landlord, 
that he said he would do so. But he never did. 

The foreigner is more dynamic, more bold, less timid 
in the presence of authority. This frequently results in 
discord. The truth of the matter is that the foreigner 
is not infrequently to blame. Take, for instance, one of 
the popular handbooks to colloquial Japanese. To read 
the brazen, bullying remarks this compiler places at the 
command of the tourist is a sad reflection on the nature 
and practice of westerners. Considering that we regard 
ourselves as superiors it is a sad commentary on our 
gentility that any one should think we would use the 
suggested remarks this little volume contains. The 
editor frankly heads them as "Some disagreeable asser- 
tions." Here are a few: "He is a terrible liar." "You 
idiot. ' ' ' * You're a liar. ' ' Here are two not in the above 
category: "Really, the fleas in this house are remark- 
able." "This butter smells horribly." And so on. 
I must say that there is ample occasion for such remarks, 
and confess that I have been more than once driven to 
using some, but in the ears of the erstwhile humble 
Japanese these must have sounded harsh beyond words, 
though I dare say he got as much and worse from his 
own superiors. 

I generally had my ups and downs. One certainly 
grows to love these people with a melancholy love. 
Their courtesy does not permit you to treat them as 
equals, and their coarseness frequently repels you. 
Their humility is pathetic. It roots and draws its sap 
too much in old Japan — a time which was surely not a 
happy one for them. And since they have extended 
to foreigners, whom they did not understand and who 
in many cases played the parts of princes though paupers 
in spirit, the same respect, what can we expect, and 



FOREIGN INFLUENCE 435 

what demand? That is where the problem of our 
future relationship hinges. 

What has been the effect of fifty years of contact? 
Are we any nearer to mutual understanding? T regret 
to say that my observations do not lead me to that 
conclusion. The flood of ** inspired" literature, subsi- 
dized press, expurgated news service which, owned or 
controlled by the Japanese government, has sought to 
stem the tide of democracy threatening to undermine 
its bureaucratic power — there and there alone must the 
blame for misunderstanding be laid. While missions were 
touring the United States telling Americans how much 
Japan hungers for democracy an anti-American cam- 
paign was afoot in Japan and in her dependencies. 
And while I made friends with a strange Japanese at a 
hotel I saw how scoffingly racial intermixture was re- 
ceived by his own people. He had just come back to 
Kyoto with his American wife and husky boy. He was 
a dentist by profession and planned to open a factory 
on the basis of American efficiency. He had been as- 
sistant dentist to the Emperor, and had known many of 
the court people. In came a stream of the younger gen- 
eration of Japanese officialdom. He knew them as mere 
boys. But they looked askance at his foreign alliance, 
treated him with scorn, and turned up their noses at the 
white woman. 

One cannot single out one individual without contrast- 
ing that one with the rest. This much must be said: 
that the man who comes to Japan for reasons other than 
trade has a pretty lonely time of it. The few foreigners, 
who are of an intellectual bent, find themselves in isola- 
tion. The missionaries are too clannish — though how- 
ever much one may differ from them one must admit 
that they form the best element among the foreign com- 
munity. One cannot live with them, however, because 
they cannot live with themselves. Set in their own ways, 



436 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

their intellectualism becomes stagnant. They do not 
care for personality, and unless you subscribe to their 
point of view they lose interest in you. Yet they are 
the dynamic force in the native life. They distribute 
leaflets among passengers on trains in exactly the same 
way as socialists and I. W. W.'s do in the West, pam- 
phlets just as objectionable to the Japanese. 

Christianity in Japan is making slow progress. There 
are to-day barely 130,000 converts, and these, as stated 
elsewhere, are sliding back into some sort of rehgious 
half-castism. 

There have been many great men among those who 
have thrown their lot in with the Japanese, names like 
those of Heam, Chamberlain, Aston, and Brinkley. 
One, however, has sacrificed his reputation on the altar 
of criticism, but he will nonetheless take his place along 
with the others. That man is Robert Young, the 
editor and proprietor of The Japan Chronicle. It is 
difficult to write about one who has borne the glory and 
the blame so modestly as has Mr. Young. As editor, 
he is of course responsible for all that The Japan Chron- 
icle stands for, though this statement is unjust both 
ways. But few foreigners have done so much for Japan 
in general and the foreign community in particular as 
has Robert Young. A man of remarkable breadth of 
view, of shrewd insight into Far Eastern questions, a 
humanitarian in every possible sense of the word, he 
has earned the respect and the fear of native and for- 
eigner alike. For thirty years a resident of Japan, he 
has devoted all his time to tussling with chauvinism and 
imperialism — at home and abroad. No newspaper in 
the Orient has fought so sincerely against subsidized 
information confusing the world; no newspaper is as 
ready to side with right as against wrong whether com- 
mitted by his own country — Great Britain — or by any 
other as The Japan Chronicle. And though a man 



SKIMPING 437. 

frankly unreligious he took up the cause of the accused 
Korean Christians as earnestly as he would have done 
if they had been confirmed atheists. No one can get 
even a general opinion of Japanese questions without 
reference to the pages of The Japan Chronicle; and 
every one can rest assured that those opinions and 
accounts are reliable and tested by close study of Far 
Eastern affairs of the thirty years of Japan's most im- 
portant history. The world would gain immeasurably 
if Robert Young would put his knowledge into book 
form to help solve the problems which will face the 
coming generations. He may have been unremittingly 
critical, but never unjustly so. It is not an easy thing 
to be an independent thinker, especially in a country 
where a newspaper is suppressed without notice or reason. 
And independent Mr. Young has been. 

No western man is ever truly at home in an Oriental 
country. There is danger in living there too long, for then 
one becomes either utterly disgusted or quite indifferent. 
Japan is a sort of mirage. At first it seems a paradise; 
after a while the charm is gone. There are constant ups 
and downs, habits running counter to one another. A 
peck of little things and no ends of trouble. The whole 
impression I have of modem Japan is one of skimping. 
Shirts are short in the seams, the green-felt top to a desk 
short on the edges. I asked a carpenter who had done 
some work for me for a piece of wood one by three- 
quarters by one-half inch and he charged me a sen (half 
a cent). The landlord of my house was a Christian. I 
suggested that he have a carpenter cut some grooves in 
the floor for the glass doors I had ordered and was to 
leave with him, and he said he would have to charge it 
to me. It was ten cents. Everything is run on that 
basis — -as near the edge as possible. 

I have not meant to deride nor to idealize Japan. The 
geographer, the explorer is not a help to the world if 



438 JAPAN— REAL. AND IMAGINARY 

he fails to tell what obtains in a given locality. If he 
says that a district is level and well watered when it is 
mountainous or desert, he is leading innocent wanderers 
to misfortune. If the writer deliberately overrates or 
belies a people, he is an enemy of society, for this leads 
to animosity and conflict. It may lead to discouraging 
a nation instead of stimulating to betterment. I have 
met its evil effects in Japan. ''Japanese were always 
anxious about what you foreigners said of us," one told 
me, **but now we don't care." It has somewhat poi- 
soned the spirit of the people. Largely, if not entirely, 
it is their own fault. While the big concerns and the 
government have shown themselves in commercial 
matters eager and willing, the masses, the tradesmen 
and shopkeepers and small fry are inefficient and un- 
willing to learn. They would rather do without than 
do otherwise. And Japan seems on the very verge of 
breakdown. Inefficiency is as rife to-day as efficiency 
was ten years ago. There are not enough trains to 
move freight and passengers, not enough clerks to move 
the mail, and not enough schools to train the youths 
demanding education. 

The effect of the transplanting of western ways to 
Japan is ominous. Artificial enough in themselves they 
are not bad when they are the outgrowth of ages of 
experimentation. But in Japan there is not that growth. 
The new is plastered right on to the old which seemed 
much grander in its ancient simplicity. The danger is 
that the Japanese begin to feel discouraged, begin to 
lose self-confidence. The danger of reaction is even 
worse. With primitive races, the stage of development 
is so elemental that it is not difficult for foreign culture 
and habits to grip them. There is no hard, ingrained 
custom to overcome. But here in Japan western civili- 
zation came in contact with a civilization as perfected 
and as rigidly formed into habit as it was itself. At 



WELDING THE LINK 439 

first the Japanese threw their own away as children do 
their toys. To-day they realize their mistake. 

It is very difficult to get a Japanese to speak out, but 
sometimes unwittingly he says volumes in a phrase. ' ' I 
sometimes am sorry I am Japanese." I've heard these 
very words from the lips of three different types, and a 
fourth said: "Japan not so great. Some say Great 
Japan, but Japan not so great, I think." I can see 
where the coming sorrows will cut their deepest wrinkles 
on the faces of these inexpressive people. Many the 
brooding day will see them saying to themselves such 
sad things, for exclusion and race prejudice are deeper 
even than economic selfishness. And Japan, having 
dug herself in, will find it hard to emerge. 

There are some men to whom hatred and vilification 
are second nature. Some cannot see good in any one 
other than those of their own brood. But there are 
people in Japan, as elsewhere, who wish to abolish racial 
discrimination, not only as the politicians, who mean by 
that that discrimination against them alone be abolished 
— ^but against others by them. That is different. 
The Japanese character is set, but malleable. To save 
Japan from itself we must stop exalting it ; to save our- 
selves from Japan we must stop condemning it. 




XXX 

HISTORICAL AND FATIDICAL 

HAVE read book upon book of Japanese his- 
tory, and, though the subject is extremely 
interesting as a study in human behavior, I 
must confess that it leaves me cold and unim- 
pressed. The mythology seems to me without 
purpose, without aspiration; the facts without warmth 
and sympathy. Not a single instance of loyalty but 
that it seems tarnished with treachery and intrigue. 
European history is not one whit cleaner, but at least 
there seems a strain of aspiration in it; somewhere, 
somehow it was involved in some intellectual ideal, some 
moral reaching. The reasoning inquirer finds enough to 
condemn and to revile, but there is also something lofty, 
something ethical. But the whole history of Japan is 
one incessant struggle for selfish ends for the supplanting 
of one family by another. One reflects in amazement at 
the conceptions of loyalty. You read, for instance, with 
some thrill of the struggles of the Minamoto family to 
regain the position wrested from it by the Taira, and the 
loyalty in exile of the brothers, Yoritomo and Yoshi- 
tsune. You are ready to forget that even their family 
had succeeded to power by intrigue and by making 
the numerous boy emperors less than puppets. You 
are absorbed in the feats of Yoshitsune and enjoy his 
brotherly generosity — when suddenly you are shocked 
to the very soul by the hatred with v/hich he is pursued 
unto death by his own brother. 

First and foremost stand the clans, loyalty to which 



HEROIC CHARACTERISTICS 441 

is the basic principle of action. Of moral issues involved 
in the thing for which the samurai fought little or no 
consideration is shown. 

A nation may be judged by the heroes it adores. The 
outstanding feature of Japanese adulation of its great 
men is that they followed the baser guidance of self- 
seeking men, for whom they voluntarily gave their lives 
by seppuku, while they worshiped an emperor stripped 
not only of all power, but of the ordinary comforts of 
life. It seems so strange that, though they gave proper 
emotional support to the Tenno, the material support 
flowed into the coffers of men for whom they cared but 
as man for man. Another striking anomaly is that 
though at heart Buddhism, the gospel of absolute peace, 
commands their devotion, they willingly turned to 
Shintoism upon rescript. These inconsistent manifesta- 
tions of loyalty leave the interested seeker after the true 
nature of the Japanese heart and mind altogether at sea. 
Buddhism, a religion decrying all hurt, harbors for many 
a year the most vengeful pack of disgruntled soldiery, 
who give let to their desire for revenge in repeated mur- 
derous raids upon the ancient capital of Kyoto; while 
Shintoism, the offspring of conquest and physical 
prowess in the way of the exalted Jimmu Tenno, the 
first Emperor, really fonxis the nucleus of peace in Japan. 
Perhaps no throne in the history of mankind has re- 
mained altogether outside the storms of political dis- 
sension as has this; or perhaps no ruler of any king- 
dom has been so long the center of some of the most 
terrible scenes of slaughter and carnage without being 
affected one way or the other, as has the Tenno. In- 
deed, some are led to doubt whether his could truly be 
called an imperial throne, seeing how little it concerned 
itself with or was the concern of the real rulers. Yet 
it is not to be wondered that the Japanese hold their 
Emperor in such awe, for however little we may admire 



442 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

the clan oligarchy, still the Emperor has been the center, 
the axis (be it real or imaginary) round which has 
wheeled the Japanese world. 

It is indeed an imaginary point, for as hero-worship 
it has little foundation in fact. The Meiji Tenno can 
well be said to have been the only Emperor whose indi- 
vidual worth has approximated his position. The 
present Emperor has as yet had little opportunity and 
less inclination to show his capabilities. All others 
were generally shorn of their power before they had a 
chance to assume it to advantage. So that we see the 
anomaly of Shotoku Taishi turning aside the throne in 
his sister's favor in order to be free to do that which he 
felt he could do for his country. He wanted not praise 
and glory, but opportunity to achieve something worthy 
and lasting, and he knew he could do so better as prince 
regent than as Tenno. And he it was who virtually 
established Buddhism as the national religion of Japan. 

What, then, to the casual observer, is the nature of 
hushido and loyalty as it exists in the mind of Japanese? 
To commit suicide by cutting open one's belly probably 
has its basis in a belief that the soul lies in the pit of the 
stomach. It typified the strength and the weakness of 
Japanese character, for though often done voluntarily 
as an act of devotion, it was more often submitted to 
out of fear of a worse fate at the hands of the con- 
queror or, when mere execution was the alternative, the 
pride (or weakness) associated with doing it oneself 
encouraged it. Even though a man realized that his 
race had run and that never again would he be able to 
indulge any of his physical desires, honor still dictated 
self-murder. Yet it should not be lost sight of that 
even at the sacrifice of honor thousands of "superior" 
Japanese preferred degradation amid the outcasts to 
harakiri. 

Having thus lightly touched upon the essential points 



CELEBRITIES 443 

in their ethical conceptions, let us view, in biographettes, 
the men who stand high in the estimation of the Japanese. 
Whom have they exalted and whom have they emulated? 
First, whereas the Chinese regard America with the 
utmost admiration, the Japanese have taken Germany 
as their standard, and their development is in accordance 
with their choice. 

Of the accumulation of celebrated personages ac- 
credited to nearly 2,500 years of history, Japan numbers 
but four mikados — one because he was drowned as an 
infant; another, Go-Daigo Tenno, because of his mis- 
fortunes; Jimmu Tenno, the first Emperor; and the 
Empress, Jingo Kogo; the descendants of four families 
— the Fujiwara, Hojo, Minamoto, and Taira; twenty- 
eight warriors (not to include the Forty-seven Ronin); 
eleven clericals; and some twenty-six poets, painters, 
dramatists, novelists, and sculptors. Only four women 
writers rank very high. 

All of these cannot be said to be held in any great 
veneration, even though they are called to your atten- 
tion as the cicerone leads you a tourist dance from 
tomb to tomb. The list of real heroes is considerably 
shorter and might, chronologically, run as follows: 

Jimmu Tenno, the first Emperor and warrior; the 
Empress Jingo for her attempted conquest of Korea 
1,700 years ago; Shotoku Taishi, Prince Regent; Kobo 
Daishi, a saint; the trinity ruling successively as sho- 
guns — Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and leyasu; and in very- 
recent years General Nogi, who committed harakiri 
upon the death of the Meiji Tenno, the most exalted 
of the mikados. There rank in no lesser patronage such 
characters as Yoshitsune, the young man whose loyalty 
to his brother and whose military genius are incompar- 
able. His brother, Yoritomo, knew loyalty so well that 
he ordered him done to death. To the Aino he has be- 
come a god, and some Japanese claim that he escaped to 



444 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

China and became the great Kubla Khan. In cases 
where loyalty to the sovereign is pointed to as worthy 
of veneration, as that of Kusunoki Masashige, the illus- 
tration is glossed over, for Masashige was struggling 
against whom ? Against those who were trying to under- 
mine the power of the Mikado. It is therefore seen that 
all cases of loyalty to the throne are marked by parallel 
examples of disloyalty. The whole value of loyalty 
falls to the ground when it is divorced from ethical con- 
cepts. And in nine cases out of ten the Japanese mind 
regards loyalty per se the great good to be sought after, 
and will set upon an equal pedestal an act of loyalty 
which is mere revenge with one which has for its aim 
the attainment of an ideal. 

Fev/ heroes hold the adoration of Japanese more than 
Toyotomi Hideyoshi. To him they are as loyal as man 
can be. A brief sketch of his life will suffice. Though 
bom of a nameless family whose antecedents have not 
been clearly traced and at a time when birth was every- 
thing, Hideyoshi achieved a prestige envied and emu- 
lated by the greatest and the best. It was a time in the 
history of Japan when being a samurai was the only 
guarantee of independence and happiness. Amid the 
glamour and show in which these two-sworded soldiers 
moved and had their being lived a childless couple. 
According to tradition, they went to the temple in the 
neighborhood very often and prayed for a son. One 
night the wife dreamed the sim had been with her and 
she was with child. On New Year's Day Hideyoshi 
was born. His childhood and early poverty, his ap- 
prenticeship to a band of robbers, his menial position 
as sandal-bearer to the great shogun, Oda Nobunaga, 
who came near bringing the numerous warring clans of 
Japan under his control — all these facts now add to the 
luster of Hideyoshi. Nor does the account of his very 
ugly face detract in the least from his renown. Hide- 



THE TRIUMVIRATE 445 

yoshi came into his own as the result of his superior s 
assassination, but the pohtical conditions were very 
unstable. Hideyoshi had the difficulty of taking the 
reins of government which had been almost completely 
wrecked by the treachery of Mitsuhide. And here is 
where the real greatness of Hideyoshi rests. Here is 
where the man appeals to me, for his likes are rare in 
the annals of great militarists. Hideyoshi 's magnani- 
mous treatment of his inferiors, his humanity and genius, 
are marred by but one horrible stain. All his life he had 
been face to face with brutality and butchery such as 
run through this period of Japanese history. Yet not 
a more humane, more generous leader could have come 
to the fore. Indomitable, vain, with an insatiable am- 
bition, he nevertheless brought the daimyos of the land 
under his control by subterfuge, but also by force tem- 
pered with mercy. And the most pathetic incident in 
his life is likewise his most outrageous. He had lived 
for many years, with many wives, but failed to have a 
child. Giving up hope, he attempted to found a family 
by the not uncommon method in Japan — adoption. 
He selected his nephew, Hidetsugu, as his heir, and con- 
ferred upon him all the powers of shogun — the greatest 
in the land, not excluding the Emperor. But Hidetsugu 
turned out to be a renegade who, besides taking a keen 
delight in himself cutting off human heads as a hobby, 
turned to plotting against the great Hideyoshi. It 
happened that just then one of his wives, Hidegumi, 
gave birth to a son who was named Hideyori. Naturally, 
Hideyoshi regretted that he had so prematurely disposed 
of his powers and was not unwilling to find or make some 
excuse for regaining them for his own son. Discovery 
of a plot was sufficient, and Hideyoshi banished Hide- 
tsugu to the Buddhist monastery at Koya-san in the an- 
cient district of Yamato, and ruthlessly put his children 
to the sword and every one connected with him. His 



446 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

vengeance knew no bounds. He did give Hidetsugu the 
privilege of a samurai to commit seppuku. This des- 
perate yet pathetic attempt on the part of Hideyoshi 
to found a family, however horrible in our eyes, is still 
not so revolting as the act of his successor, leyasu, who. 
besides carrying out the same course on Hideyoshi 's 
son, Hideyori, razed the temple Hideyoshi built to 
himself, which is said to have been the most beautiful 
ever erected in Japan. 

Yet such is the nature of Japanese conceptions with 
regard to loyalty that leyasu shares with Hideyoshi the 
adoration of the country. Though leyasu had promised 
Hideyoshi to support Hideyori, the moment his oppor- 
tunity came he brushed aside all sense of loyalty and 
justice. By subterfuge and deception he succeeded in 
conquering Hideyori. After a truce had been agreed 
upon, leyasu deceived the other and filled in the moats 
round Osaka Castle, a fortress built by Hideyoshi and 
till then absolutely impregnable. And when the castle 
fell the flames consumed the self-murdered mother as 
well as Hideyori. Then he set in motion a s^^stem of 
espionage and intrigue which secured for his line, the 
Tokugawa family, the ascendancy over Japan for 270 
years. It was this method which kept the country in 
seclusion for two and a half centuries. And it is doubt- 
less that selfsame training which to-day makes most 
people in the world so distrustful of the Japanese. As 
soon as they outlive the secretiveness and distrustfulness 
in which they still are submerged, the Japanese will take 
their place among the nations of the world without any 
drawbacks. But not till then. For no nation that can 
exalt such rank disloyalty can wholly claim to be a 
nation of bushido. The fact of the matter is that, acr 
cording to Basil Hall Chamberlain,^ the greatest living 

^ See Basil Hall Chamberlain's The Invention of a New Religion, 
Watts & Co., London. 




NO IMAGE IN ALL JAPAN IS MORE HUMAN AND LIFELIKE THAN THE GIANT 
BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA 



p 




m 


mi^ 




^i^flflH 






_ , 








IkJ 








c • 


• 


hHI 




, i 






PH'V: '. 


■t^W 






■^ 




I 




,M. 


1? [^ 

! 




ik^'^^^mS^^^^^^H B 


>. *.■ . . 


^ 



SAVING PORTRAITS 447 

authority on things Japanese and Emeritus Professor 
of Japanese and Philology at the Imperial University 
of Tokyo, the whole notion of bushido is an invention 
pure and simple, manufactured and promulgated by the 
oligarchy of present-day Japan to secure its own position. 
We have also the celebrated case of the Forty-seven 
Ronin. Their story is supposed to thrill us with examples 
of loyalty and devotion. A daimyo has been insulted 
and attempts to take the life of his superior. He fails 
and is ordered to commit harakiri, even though his act 
is in accordance with the spirit of the times. His re- 
tainers dispose of their property or have been dispos- 
sessed of it, and forty-seven of the most loyal of them 
determine to revenge their lord's death. How do they 
go about it? Openly would have meant destruction; 
so they determine upon deception. They scatter. 
They desert their families, in itself the most brutal 
sort of disloyalty. They affect dissipation to such an 
extent that the leader is said to have wallowed in the 
streets of Kyoto and to have made a certain house of 
prostitution famous by frequenting it. To this day the 
place is pointed out to you as one of the leading houses 
of prostitution. Having learned common trades, they 
succeed in getting close to their victim, who, by this 
time completely off his guard, falls victim to them. 
And where do they find him ? Not as a lord and samu- 
rai, facing death fearlessly, but in the woodshed, hiding, 
and finally dragged out to be decapitated. His head is 
carried to the tomb of their master and they surrender 
themselves to the authorities. On the way they are 
feasted by the multitude and by the lords, all of whom 
extol it as an act of the greatest devotion. Yet they 
are ordered to commit harakiri just the same. Now 
this version of the story is not purposely colored to dis- 
credit their devotion. But in all such stories emphasis 
is so cleverly placed upon the acts of some as to make us 



448 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

completely overlook those of the others. And if it is 
typical of Japanese to face death as did these forty- 
seven, why is it not equally as typical of them to face 
it as did that other — in the woodshed? 

No act of loyalty in the whole history of Japan stands 
out more pure and free from personal advantage than 
the suicide of General Nogi. This self-sacrifice brings a 
thrill to every Japanese heart. A man of simple birth, 
he rose to fame in the struggle with Russia, and upon 
the death of the Meiji Tenno he and his wife committed 
harakiri. Their motive was twofold. First, the general 
wanted to be with the Emperor, who had befriended him, 
in the other world. Second, seeing the profligacy of 
his fellow-countrymen, their craze after wealth and 
power in recent years, he wished — himself a man of the 
most frugal habits — to impress a great moral lesson 
upon his people. He made himself loved and venerated 
and deified — but one wonders whether he accomplished 
his sincere aim. Girls still hanker after extravagant 
bows of silk for their girdles, and men dress in expensive 
silk clothes, though for a while the impression left by 
the general's act was great. 

Other acts of self-murder out of a false sense of loyalty 
are not wanting. Once the Emperor's train went in a 
dangerous direction. The engineer committed suicide. 
People collected large sums of money for the suicide's 
family. 

A fire broke out in a school, and at the risk of his life 
a teacher rushed in to save the Emperor's portrait — 
which could easily be replaced for a few yen. The whole 
Empire applauded. Another man left his wife and two 
children in a burning house to look after themselves 
while he tried to save the pictures of the Emperor and 
Empress. And once while watching the firemen playing 
at extinguishing the fire of the Kobe Middle School, a 
Japanese told me enthusiastically not to forget to report 



J 



THE CREAKING OF EMPIRE 449 

to the paper that the picture of the Emperor had been 
saved. 

Opinion is nowadays divided on this question. Some 
people are raising a cry against it. And, indeed, one 
wonders how much fear of punishment rather than gen- 
uine loyalty obtains in such practices. It is not more 
than a couple of generations since a commoner was cut 
down with nonchalance when he crossed the path of one 
of the nobility. In the Middle Ages it happened even 
when a person kicked a dog whose protection had been 
guaranteed by edict. People no more fall prostrate on 
their knees in the presence of royalty, but the check on 
Japanese impulse still obtains. 

Yet the impulse rises well enough. It breaks out in 
spurts of fanatical devotion, a devotion which turns the 
footsteps of every Japanese in the direction of Yamada 
Ise, the Mecca of Japan. Thither the pilgrims go; 
thither the Emperor goes to lay before his ''divine" 
ancestors all the joys and burdens of his heart. It is 
called the Fountain-head of Shintoism, but it is only a 
group of primitive shacks with thatched roofs set well 
within fenced inclosures and in one of the pretty wooded 
hills along the eastern coast. Every twenty years the 
shacks are rebuilt — and have been for over twenty cen- 
turies. And for over twenty centuries the teeming 
millions of the Empire have come and gazed and grunted 
the native ''Mahr of surprise; and emperors have 
brought notice of success in war and treachery, of sorrow 
and ascent. Before these shrines of the illustrious the 
ill-fated, the eclipsed and poverty-stricken rulers, suc- 
cession after succession of mikados and succession after 
succession of generations, have bowed till the habit has 
become an inherited conviction. It is easy to convince 
a people provided you insist long enough, and though 
adoption, concubinage, and eclipse have broken into the 
line of sovereigns, it will take ages more or a serious 



4SO JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

cataclysm to change the conviction of the Japanese that 
their emperors are of divine origin. And death will con- 
tinue to add to the gallery of gods kept in the shacklike 
shrines as primitive as the idea of the divinity of rulers is 
primitive. 

The hydra-headed monster of imperialism still men- 
aces the world. In Moissaye J. Olgin's The Soul of the 
Russian Revolution we read on page 58: 

All power has its derivation from God, says Katkov. The Russian 
Tsar, however, was granted a special significance, distinguishing 
him from the rest of the world's rulers. He is not only the Tsar of 
his land and the leader of his people, he is designated by God to be 
the guardian and custodian of the Orthodox Church. The Russian 
Tsar is more than an heir to his ancestors, he is a successor to the 
Church and its conclaves, the founders of the very Creed of the Faith 
of Christ. With the fall of Byzantium, Moscow arose and the 
grandeur of Russia began. Herein lies the mystery of the deep dis- 
tinction between Russia and all the nations of the world. 

The Russian Czar is now not even able to reflect on 
the truth or falsity of this statement. Yet the German 
Czar, laid low, still dreams of resuscitation. Still tri- 
umphant and supreme stands the Japanese Czar, and 
the Niroku, sl Japanese journal, repeats the blind blunder 
in the following : 

To preserve the world*s peace and promote the welfare of mankind 
is the mission of the imperial family of Japan. Heaven has invested 
the imperial family with all the necessary quaHfications to fulfil this 
mission. 

He who can fulfil this mission is one who is the object of himianity's 
admiration and adoration and who holds the prerogative of adminis- 
tration forever. The imperial family of Japan is as worthy of respect 
as God and is the embodiment of benevolence and justice. The 
great principle of the imperial family is to make popular interests 
paramoimt. 

The imperial family of Japan is the parent not only of her sixty 
millions, but of all mankind on earth. In the eyes of the imperial 
family all races are one and the same; it is above all racial considera- 



CZAR, KAISER, MIKADO 451 

tions. All human disputes, therefore, may be settled in accordance 
with its immaculate justice. The League of Nations, proposed to 
save manldnd from the horrors of war, can only attain its real object 
by placing the imperial family at its head, for to attain its objects 
the League must have a strong punitive force of super-national and 
super-racial character, and this force can only be found in the imperial 
family of Japan. 

There's nothing Hke being up-to-date without changing 
a vestige of one's old habits. And there's none more 
able to play at that game than Japan's imperialists. 

Their gallery of heroes is to the Japanese not the tomb 
of the dead. Ancestors live in as real a sense as a 
brother gone to Am.erica still lives, and the part they 
play in life is not merely one of stimulus. Shintoism is 
the vehicle for all that is desirable to the government, 
and though missionaries try to belittle its influence and 
many natives profess their disbelief by declaring "it is 
my duty to believe it," still it is a force not to be ignored. 
Limited to mere adoration of a symbol, it is picturesque 
and praiseworthy; translated into a force for the fur- 
therance of oligarchical ambition, its danger is illimitable. 
To this very day the dentist or doctor treating the Em- 
peror or Empress must wear silk gloves so as not to 
touch the august person. There was a bridge in Japan 
in a dangerous state of disrepair, but nothing was done 
until on occasion H. I. H. the Crown Prince had to pass 
by, not over it. Then it was rebuilt entirely so as to 
remove an unsightly thing which the Prince might see 
from his train. 

Whether Shintoism — Emperor and nature worship — • 
will stand in the way of political and intellectual progress 
in Japan is doubtful. It is one of those bags of fable 
into which all manner of beliefs and policies may be put 
without overtaxing its assimilative capacities. Just as 
it took in Buddhism, so it may find a way of taking in 
democracy. 



452 JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 

When Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary, showed 
the Japanese barons that it was to their advantage to 
adopt Christianity, they made a clean sweep of Buddhism 
and Shintoism. What will happen when they see the 
advantage in democracy remains to be seen. Japan has 
grown too much to be able to shut herself off from world 
tendencies. Her flag, a round red sun against a world 
of icy nothingness, can no longer be her real symbol. 
No matter how much she may consider herself superior 
to the rest of the world, she will find that she is made 
of the common stuff of humanity. 

But where in all Japan is there to-day a great man, a 
person with the vision and the forcefulness of a Hide- 
yoshi ? Mr. Yukio Ozaki is the adoration of the people. 
He recently went abroad to study world conditions with 
a view to forming a party of labor and democracy upon 
his return. Japan needs a man and a cause. The 
people need awakening to the real meaning of life. 
Shintoism must be displaced. What mankind needs is 
world consciousness. Not exclusion, but inclusion. Not 
inclusion by conquest, as has been the aggressive, imperi- 
alistic policy of Japan since her first war with China 
— the breaking of her pledge to Korea and then at- 
tempting to cure the wound by Shintoist Christian 
Science. But Japan, desiring the elimination of racial 
discrimination, should step down from her pedestal and 
walk proudly among men. 



INDEX 



Actor, 409. 

Agriculture, 373; Bureau of, 374- 

376. 
Aino, 322, 324, 443. 
Aiyabe, 296. 
Akashi, 180, 188; time meridian 

for Japan at, 187. 
Amano-Hashidate, the Ladder of 

Heaven, 295. 
America, 342, 423, 425, 435, 443, 

451- 
Amusements, 57, 427; and the 

censor, 125. 
Ancestors, loi. 
Animals, so-called sacred, kindly 

treated, 115; treatment of, 322. 
Anti-Americanism, 435. 
Arashiyama, 280. 
Arima, 296. 
Arima-michi, 65. 
Art, 381, 382, 409, 419. 
Ashikaga, family of shoguns, 163; 

Goshimitsu, 275. 
Ashikagas, 276. 
Aston, W. G., 436. 
Atheists, 427. 
Atsumori, 183. 
Australia, 424. 
Awaji Island, 32; of mythological 

origin, 190; slowly sinking, 191. 



B 

Babies, 9, 419. 

Barber shop, 105. 

Barons, 452, 

Bathing, 292, 431. 

Baths, 28, 29, 30, 291 ; public, 20. 

"Beds," 27. 

Beggars, 25, 334. 

Bicycles, 25. 

Birth-rate, 106, 331. 



Biwa-ko, largest lake in Japan, 257. 

Black, Mr. 403. 

Blossom-time, 114. 

Boarder, 150. 

Boarding-houses, 33. 

Bonus, 353, 354. 

Book of Tea, 217. 

Book-stores, 100; crowded by chil- 
dren, no. 

Boys, 109, 111-112. 

Boy Scouts, 385. 

Bribes, 367. 

Brinkley, Capt. F., 436. 

British Museum, 418. 

Buddha, 228, 301 ; bronze image of, 
239; candles for, 245. 

Buddhism, 145, 159, 168, 182, 229, 
234, 250, 254, 267, 316, 322, 323, 
331, 341, 380, 441, 442, 445, 451, 
452; effect of, seen in neglect of 
animals, 240. 

Buddhist architecture, 293. 

Bunji, Mr. Suzuki, 360. 

Bunten, 418, 419. 

Bureaucracy, 365-378, 429, 432, 
435. 

Bushido, 316, 369, 390, 429, 442, 
446, 447. 

Business, 368, 437; man, 134; on 
American system, 21. 



Capital punishment, 349. 
Carp, floating, a symbol, 107. 
Catarrhs, children with, 7. 
Cells, prison, 339, 340. 
Censorship, 402-408, 426, 435. 
Chamberlain, Basil Hall, 436, 446. 
Charity, 369, 370. 
Chauvinism, 430. 
Cherry-trees over two hundred 

years old, 263. 
Child-bearing, 106. 



454 



JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 



Childish pranks, no. 

Children, io6, 107, 322, 426; rear- 
ing of, 99. 

China, 380, 406, 444, 452. 

Chinese, 322, 324, 356, 381, 423, 443. 

Chomei, hermit saint of Hiei-san, 81. 

Choshu, 206. 

Christianity, 327, 436, 439, 453. 

Christian Science, 452. 

Church, 450. 

Cinematograph theater, 123. 

City of Kobe, 10. 

Clans, 424, 440. 

Cleanliness, 7, 39. 

Clear Water Temple, 267. 

Clogs, wood, straw, sandals, 7, 9. 

Cloth carp, 106. 

Coal deposits, 6. 

Coal-heavers, girl, 4. 

Commerce, 352, 369, 437. 

Commercialism, 17. 

Commercial school, 389. 

Communal spirit, 97. 

Communications, Department of, 
358. 

Contract labor, 342. 

Coolie, the female, 26, 135. 

Co-operatives, 364. 

Corporal punishment, 345. 

Cost of living, 354, 356, 361, 362, 
365-366, 391. 

Costumes, 9, 99, 100, 413. 

Courtesy, 424, 425, 426, 434. 

Court-house, 338. 

Courts, 348. 

Crime, 346, 348, 349, 368; ses 
Prisons. 

Crowds, 216. 

Crown Prince, 451. 

Cruelty, 114, 427; to animals, 115. 

Cushions, 84. 

Customs, 18, 21. 

Czar, 450. 

Czarevitch, 349. 



D 

Daikon, 248, 361. 
Daimyo, 382, 417, 430, 433. 
Danjiro, 410. 
Deer, 115. 
Delay, chronic, 130. 
Democracy, 352, 373, 401, 407, 435, 
451, 452. 



Diimer, an elaborate, 57. 

Disease, 331. 

Division Street, 12. 

Dockyards, 363. 

Dogs, 241; sacred at Koya-san, 115. 

Doshisha University, 332. 

Dow, Arthur Wesley, the American 

painter, 278. 
Drama, 409, 443. 
Drunkenness, 281. 



Ebisu, 369. 

Education, 379-401. 

Efficiency, 438. 

Electricity in a monastery, 246. 

Electric lighting, 29, 84. 

Emigrants, 14. 

Emperor, 216, 236, 349, 365, 378, 

383, 384, 385, 394, 395, 396, 433, 

435, 445- 
Emperor- worship, 431, 441, 448, 

449, 450, 451- 
Empress Jingo Kogo, 150. 
EngHsh, 318, 397-400, 401, 406; 

instruction in, 387; lessons in, 47. 
Eta, 315-328, 333, 371, 410. 
Etajima, 327. 
Europe, 423. 
Europeans, 382. 



Factories, 331, 363, 367, 369; see 

Strikes. 
Family differences, 73. 
Fan, 413-414. 
Fanaticism, 426, 430. 
Farce, 412. 
Feastings, 57. 
Features, 41. 
Fencing, 116. 

Fenollosa, Ernest, 278, 417. 
Festivals, 285. 
Feudalism, 360, 361, 382, 425, 430, 

446. 
Fishing-vessels, 5. 
Flag, 452. 
Flood of 191 7, 220. 
Flute, 82. 

Food, 15, 36, 146; Japanese, 13. 
Foreigners, 357, 386, 432, 433, 434, 

436. 



INDEX 



455 



Foreign settlement, 17. 

Forty-seven Renin, 425, 443, 447. 

Francis Xavier, 452. 

Friendliness, 102. 

Fue, 82, 196. 

Fuji, 302-311; worship, 309. 

Fujiwara family, 443. 

Fukui, 297. 

Fume San, 42. 

Funerals, loi, 157, 160, 161, 164. 

Fushimi Province, 320. 

Futon, 18, 56, 197, 249. 



G 

Gambling, 332. 

Games, 53, 107, 426. 

Gardens, 29. 

Goisha, 15, 53, 55, 57, 58, 60, 62, 
64, 66, loi, 185, 241, 367, 410, 
424, 425, 426; and prostitutes, 
adjacent quarters, 68; choice of 
eight hundred, offered, 63 ; dancing, 
219; get to be tiresome, 70; girls, 
217; song, 61 ; where they live, 63. 

Genji Monogatori, 279. 

Germans, 389, 391. 

Germany, 349, 443, 450, 

Geta, 62, no, 334, 340, 342, 343. 

Gion matsuri, 260, 281. 

Girls, 392; flower, 52. 

Glass factories, 222. 

Go, 283. 

Go-Daigo, Emperor, 163, 328; ten- 
no, 443. 

Goddess of Mercy, 268. 

Godowns, 17. 

Gods, 8. 

Gohan, 50. 

Gokyo-Den, 349. 

Golden Pavilion, 268, 274, 275. 

Gompers, Samuel, 361. 

Goshi, 163. 

Gotemba, 302, 303, 307, 308. 

Goto, Baron, 370, 406. 

Government, 351, 357, 362, 435, 
451; ownership, 365; 5^^ Bureau- 
cracy. 

Great Britain, 436. 



H 



Habutae, 298. 
Hagi, 206, 



"Hana," 52. 

Hara, Premier, 371, 373, 405. 

Harakiri, 253, 323, 441, 442, 443, 

447, 448; -maru, 193. 
Harima province, 192. 
Health, 391 ; see Hygiene. 
Hearn, Lafcadio, 436. 
Heian, Kyoto, 381. 
Heimin, 326. 
Hibachi, 6, 23, 217. 
Hibiya Park, 361. 
Hidegumi, 445. 
Hidetsugu, 445, 446. 
Hideyori, 445, 446. 
Hideyoshi, 194, 223, 224, 280, 297, 

382, 396, 425, 428, 429, 430, 443, 

444, 445, 446, 452; shrine of, 293. 
Hiei-san, 224, 276. 
Himeji, 195, 339, 34^; its ancient 

castle, 192; its prisoners of war, 

195. 
Hinin, 320. 

History, 381; of Japan, 440. 
Hojo family, 443. 
Hokkaido, 371. 
Holidays, 146, 148. 
Home Department, 359. 
Home life, 88, 91 ; in Japan, 83. 
Homes, 29; absence of privacy in, 

58. 
Homyo-in, 278. 
Hongwanji temples, 268. 
Hospital, 341, 344. 
Hotel, Japanese, 12. 
Hotels, 19. 

House, a twelve-and-a-half-mat, 79. 
Housecleaning, compulsory, 85. 
Household, woman's worth in, 92. 
Housekeeping difficulties, 82. 
Houses, 6, 39; interior, 214; not 

enough in Kobe, 77. 
Housing, 334, 335, 336, 377. 
Hozugawa Rapids, 280. 
Hygiene, 392, 393. 
Hyogo, 32, 67, 163, 180, 319, 366. 
Hysteria, 426, 427, 428. 

I 

"Ice-cream," 52. 

leyasu, 443, 446; tomb of, 2^3; 
founder of Tokugawa family, 
224; Tokugawa, 349, 381; the 
^rch-ejtclusionist, 223. 



4S6 



JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 



Immigration, 351, 376. 

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, 289. 

Imperialism, 299, 307, 315, 352, 373, 
390, 426, 427, 431, 449, 450, 451; 
see Tennoism. 

Industrialism, 315, 326, 331; com- 
parison with American, 129. 

Industrialization, 364, 371, 372. 

Industrial methods, 128. 

Industry, 344, 345, 353. 

Influenza, 431. 

Inland Sea, 5, 9, 10, 35, 181, 186, 
195, 199, 201, 319- 

Inouye, Count, 383. 

Intermarriage, 432, 435. 

Invention of a new religion, 436. 

Iron Heel, 428. 

Ishida Mitsunari, 430. 

Ishiyama-dera, 279. 

Ito Chiyu, 349. 

Ito, Prince, 383. 

Izanagi and Izanami, 5, 190. 



Japan Advertiser, 405. 

Japan Chronicle, 377, 405, 407, 436, 

437. 

Japan, creation of, 191; life in old, 
65; pleasant and unpleasant 
sides of, 29. 

"Japanese way," 51. 

Jesuits, 452. 

Jimmu Tenno, 407; the first Em- 
peror, 223, 441, 443. 

Jmgo Kogo, 443. 

Jinrikisha, 140; puller, 40. 

Jizo, god of travelers, 244. 

Jo-no-mai, 413. 

Judges, 348. 

Judiciary, 348-350- 

Judo, 117. 

Juvenile crime, 347. 



K 

Kagawa, Mr. Toyohito, 324, 329. 

Kakemono, 418. 

Kamakura, 301. 

Kamogawa, 321. 

Kangokusho (penitentiary), 337. 

Karakami, 80, 278. 

Karuizawa, 298. 



Katkov, 450. 

Kato, Viscount, 372. 

Kawaramono, 321, 409, 410. 

Kawasaki dockyards, 363. 

Kenseikai, 372, 373. 

Kii Channel, 32, 186. 

Kimigaya (National Anthem), 394. 

Kindergarten, 392. 

Kinkakuji, 274. 

Kitakaze San, 163. 

Kitchen, 253. 

Kobe, II, 16, 31, 85, 151, 317, 319, 
323, 324, 332, 335, 337, 344, 346, 
348, 352, 358, 360, 363, 367, 370; 
cages and syphilis, 76; Higher 
Commercial School, 387, 389; 
Hyogo, Shinto shrine most favored 
temple in Japan, descriptive, 151 ; 
Kumochi, a district of, 1 57 ; public 
baths, 29; street conditions, 210; 
the brains of New Japan, 179. 

Kobo Daishi, 247, 272, 274, 380, 
443; saint, 273; tomb of, 252. 

Kohara, Mr., copper-king, 254. 

Kojiki (history), 381. 

Kojima, Judge, 350. 

Kokusai Tsushinsha (News Agency), 
408. 

Kondo or Golden Hall, 253. 

Korea, 405, 429, 443, 452. 

Koreans, 322, 324, 348, 357, 363, 

419, 437- 

Kosuke, Tomeoka, 324. 

Koya-san, 445. 

Kubla Khan, 444. 

Kuramaguchi, 321. 

Kusunoki Masashige, 444. 

Kutani ware, 298. 

Kwannon, 268. 

Kwansai Rodo Domeikai (Kwansai 
Labor Union), 360. 

Kyogen (farce), 412. 

Kyo-mizu, 270. 

Kyoto, 208, 211, 282, 299, 317, 319, 
320, 323, 324, 325, 332, 333, 335, 
350, 360, 367, 380, 381, 399, 410, 
418, 435, 441, 447; best laid out 
of any Japanese city, 259; build- 
ings up-to-date, 258; classic 
Japan, 179; Emperor Kwammu, 
256; New Year visits, 262; sta- 
tion, 296; the heart of Japan, 

257. 
Kyushu, 206, 367. 



INDEX 



457 



Labor, 332, 351-364, 369, 372, 373, 
374, 375; and singing, 72; an 
example of waste in human toil, 
133; cheap, 84, 210; irregular 
hours of, 129 ; party, 372 ; situation 
in Japan, 134; union, 359, 360, 372, 
375,376,377,378; waste, 133; see 
Strikes, Industry, Factories. 

Laborers, 195. 

Lake Biwa, 277, 279. 

Landlords, 334, 433. 

"Language" lessons, 19. 

Languages, three, in Japan, 47. 

League of Nations, 451. 

Letters by zealous students, 138. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 384. 

Literature, 381, 382. 

Living conditions, 13. 

Living, cost of, 24. 

Locksmiths, 83. 

London, Jack, 428. 

Lovers, 89. 

Loyalty, 444. 

M 

Maizuru, 296; on the Japan Sea, 295. 

Makie ware, 298. 

*' Mame," 52. 

Manners, 19, 44, 93, 102. 

Manufacturers, 223. 

Maories, 323, 428. 

Markets, 377. 

Marriage, 91, 326; legal form often 

neglected, 74. 
Maruyama, Mr., 404; Park, 263. 
Masashige, Kusunoki, 328. 
Masks, 413. 

Masumoto, Mr., 374, 377. 
Mathematics, 381. 
Mats, standard of measurements, 

34; their cost, 77. 
Matsuri, 264. 
Maya-san, 44. 
Meals, 64. 
Medicine, 381. 
Meiji era, 365. 
Meiji Tenno, 349, 365, 409, 442, 443, 

448. 
Men, 100; efifeminate ways of, 89. 
Mii-dera, 277, 278. 
Mikado, 385, 444, 451. 



Mikadoism, 431. 

Mikado's former palace, 275. 

Militarism, 108, 323, 372, 390, 429. 

Minamoto, 443; family, 440. 

Minatogawa, 62, 363, 410. 

Miners, 354, 355, 356, 376. 

Minister of Communications, 57. 

Minstrels, 25. 

Missionaries, 276, 317, 327, 401, 
435, 451, 452. 

Missionary work, 156. 

Mitsuhide, 445. 

Mitsui Bishi Kaisha, 253, 370. 

Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, 371. 

Miyajima, 198, 199, 201, 202; the 
famous torii, 202; torii, its sig- 
nificance as symbol, 203. 

Mochi, 146, 253, 260. 

Modernism, 168; Japanese, 15. 

Moji, 6, 9, 206; temple, 8. 

Monogamy, first adopted by pres- 
ent Emperor, 62, 

Morals, 59, 315, 384, 385, 397, 426, 

431. 

Mori, Viscount, 386. 

Motherhood, unashamed, 99. 

Motor-cars, loi. 

Mount Asama, 298. 

Movies, 103, 125; enlightening 
Japan, 126; influence of, in de- 
mocratization, 124. 

Murasaki Shikibu, 278, 279. 

Murdoch, James, 322. 

Music, 420. 

Mythology, 440. 

N 

Nagasaki, 206, 207, 370; Press, 207; 

the thumb, 179. 
Nagoya, 301, 319, 367, 420. 
Naniwa Odori, 216. 
Naoetsu, 298. 
Nara, 208, 228, 232, 392; cameras 

prohibited in, 236; Koya-san, 
. 243; mythological Japan, 179; 

Osaka, Kyoto, people from, 233; 

seat of Japanese Empire, 234; 

the park at, 240; yearly festival 

at, 227. 
Narikin, 53, 54, 56, 57, loi, 251, 

273, 353, 356, 369, 370, 371, 372, 

417, 420; homes, 82. 
Nashimoto, Prince, 236. 



45^ 



JAPAN-REAL AND IMAGINARY 



National Anthem, 394. 

National Gallery, 418. 

Nature, love of, 310; worship, 451. 

Navy, 327, 363. 

Neighbor, a new, 50. 

Neighborhood, typical Japanese, 81. 

Newsboys, 25. 

Newspapers, 181, 357, 436, 450; 

see Press. 
New Year's, chief national holiday, 

145; Eve, 260. 
New Zealand, 323, 389, 424, 428. 
Nicholas I, 349. 
Nightside of Japan, 431. 
Niigata, 354. 
Nikko, 293. 
Nippon Rodo Kumiai (Japan Labor 

Union), 360. 
Niroku, 350. 

Nishimura's silk-store, 284. 
No, 410-417. 

Nobnnaga, 223, 276, 380, 443, 444. 
Nogi, General, 206, 448. 
Nogouchi, 325. 
NoveHsts, 443. 
Nude, 419. 
Numazu, 302. 
Nurseries, 331. 



OH, 55, 56, 103. 

Odors, 28. 

Officialdom, 435. 

Officials, 381. 

Ohara, 277. 

Okiku, 194. 

Okuma, Count, 320, 386, 407. 

Olgin, Moissaye J., 450. 

Oligarchy, 371; see Bureaucracy. 

Onomichi, 199; fishing-smacks, 199; 
the "strand," 199. 

Opera, 412. 

Orchestra, 420. 

Osaka, 208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 223, 
352, 354, 360, 366, 367; Asahi, 
404, 405; Bay, 31, 32; Castle, 
446; electric signs, 210; great 
clearing-house, 211; history of, 
223; iron-works, 354, 355; junks 
and launches, 223; modem com- 
mercial Japan, 179; Naniwa 
castle, 224; odori, 219; Shin- 
shaibashi, 210; street conditions, 



210; "Sunrise Restaurant," 212; 

taxis, 210; theaters, 212; Tenoji 

Park, 212. 
Otsu, 277, 278. 
Outcasts, 315-328. 
Ozaki, Mr. Yukio, 235, 372, 452. 



Pageantry, 264. 

Pagoda, 220. 

Painters, 443. 

Painting, 418. 

Pan, 15. 

Parents, respect for, 90. 

Peace, 429-430; Conference, 361. 

Peers, 373. 

Penitentiary, 337. 

Phonograph, 420. 

Physicians, 353; visiting, 7. 

Pilgrims, 306, 449. 

Pillows, wooden, 56. 

Plague in 876, 282. 

Playgrounds, children's, 8. 

Plum dance, 413. 

Poetry, 381, 427. 

Poets, 443. 

Police, 359, 360, 427, 433; inspec- 
tion, 85. 

Pooley, A. AI,, 407. 

Population, 371; increase in, 99. 

Post-office, 358, 362, 377. 

Poverty, 63, 315, 343, 344, 373, 
391 ; see Slums. 

Press, 402-409. 

Priests, 16, 25, 249, 261. 

Prince, 451. 

Prince Arthur of Connaught, a 
contrast, 237. 

Prince Ito, 206. 

Princess Der Ling, 423. 

Prisons, 326, 337-347. 424; see 
Crime. 

Privacy, lack of, 45. 

Profiteer, 355. 

Prohibition, 262. 

Proletariat, 406. 

Propaganda, 329, 435. 

Prostitute, the tale of a, 68. 

Prostitutes, a semicircle of, 69; re- 
stricted districts for, 68. 

Prostitution, 447; legaHzed in Ja- 
pan, 69. 

Public Markets, 366. 



INDEX 



459 



Race prejudice, i6. 

Race-suicide, 99, 106. 

Racial discrimination, 360, 377, 

452. 
Railroads, 299, 352, 357, 377- 
Rain, 98. 
Rats, 24. 
Recreations, 116. 
Regulations, 7. 

Religion, 144, 272, 369, 427, 436. 
Rents, 77, 79. 
Rescript, 379, 394-395- 
Residences, fine, 8. 
Reuter's Agency, 408. 
Rice riots, 289, 317, 319, 326, 332, 

346, 348, 355, 361, 369. 371, 

373. 
Rickshaw man, 139, 147. 
Rickshaws, 25, 67, loi, 433. 
Riot, 353. 
Roads, 378. 
Rooms, 18. 
Runners, 25. 

Russia, 349, 361, 406, 448. 
Russian Revolution, 450. 
Russo-Japanese War, 331. 



Saigo, Minister, 350. 

Sailing-vessels, 10, 33. 

Sake, 56, 66, 121, 248, 354, 371. 

Sake-hrevimg establishment, 71. 

Saki, 263. 

Salvation Army, 331. 

Samisen, 66, 218. 

Samurai, 65, 108, 323, 324, 326, 

329-330, 359, 429, 441. 
Sanitation, 329-330; absence of, 7. 
Sanka, 320. 
Scandal, 366-367. 
Schools, 7 ; attendance, 107; peculiar 

ideas, 137; 327, 331, 346, 390, 

392, 442. 
Science, 381. 
Sculptors, 443. 
Seamen, 363. 
Seiyojin, 82. 

Sekigahara, battle of, 224. 
Semi, 109. 
Sendo, 287. 
Sdppuh.t, -MI, 446. 



Servants, 13, 38, 363; the problem 
of, 76. 

Sewerage, 330, 433. 

Sexes, the gulf between, 125; segre- 
gation of, 125. 

Shidzuoka, 359. 

Shijo, 374. 

Shimonoseki, 9, 206; Straits of, 3. 

Shinaikai, 375. 

Shin-heimin, 321. 

Shinkawa, Kobe, 329, 332, 335. 

Shinto, 378; priest, 169; shrines, 
306. 

Shintoism, 9, 145, 151, 159, 168, 
172, 174, 175, 250, 272, 301, 323, 
385, 386, 441, 448, 449, 451, 452; 
little knov/n of its basic prin- 
ciples, 173; most vital phase of, 
168; the symbol of, 148. 

Shinzaike, "Heron Castle," 197; the 
village temple, 195. 

Shioya, 319. 

Shoji, 6, 80, 253. 

Shopping, 86. 

Shotoku Taishi, 380, 381, 442, 443. 

Shrines, 8, 16, 150, 1 53-1 54- 

Siberia, 406. 

Silk, 325. 

Skyscraper, a, 26. 

Slums, 329-336, 343- 

SociabiHty, 15, 58. 

Socialism, 315. 

SociaHst, 405. 

Social welfare, 336. 

Soldiers, loi. 

Soshi (physical force politicians), 
404. 

SouUessness, 132. 

S. P. C. A., 116. 

Sports, 117. 

Stage, see Drama. / 

Station, railroad, 9. 

Stock Exchange, 221. 

Street-cars, 125, 258. 

Streets, 6; sidewalkless, 17. 

Strikes, 346, 352, 354-360, 362, 377, 

388. 
Students, 383, 385, 387-392. 
Subashiri, 307. 
Suffrage, 378, 401. 
Suicide, 410. 
Suma, 163, 181, 185, 187; bathers, 

indifference to the nude, 185. 
Suma's fire-brigad{', 185. 



460 



JAPAN— REAL AND IMAGINARY 



Sumo, 121. 
Sunday, 16. 
Superdreadnought, 54. 
Superstition, 431. 
Sutras, 250. 
Suwayama Park, 52. 
Suzuki & Co., 369, 373. 
Sweetmeats, 104. 
Syphilis, 75. 



Tahi, 4, 273. 

Taiko, 224; Hideyoshi, 286. 

Taira, 443; family, 440. 

Takada, 298. 

Takano, Doctor, 375. 

Takatori, 357. 

Tamba Maru, 11. 

Tatami, 18. 

Tea ceremony, 217. 

Teacher, 362, 393. 

Tea-houses, 44, 53, 55, 60, 242." 

Tea sets, 13. 

Telegraph, 358, 377. 

Telephones, 378. 

Temple, 229; bell, Nara, 239; wor- 
ship, 265. 

Temples, 264, 269. 

Tennoism, 299, 431, 448. 

Terauchi, Count, 371, 373, 404-405, 
407. 

Theater, 122, 216, 218, 370, 409. 

Theaters, 262, 460. 

Tokiwa, 60; tea-house, 44. 

Tokonami (Home Minister), 359. 

Tokonoma, 245. 

Tokugawa, 365, 425, 446; Bakafu, 
206; era, 175; leyasu, 349, 381, 
409. 

Tokyo, 286, 299, 335, 338, 349, 361, 
366, 376, 392, 406, 418; April 
15th a holiday, 287; Ginza, 290; 
Hibiya Park, 290; leyasu 's tomb, 
294; medieval Japan, 179; my 
last visit there, 291; paved 
streets, 287; Ueno Station, 291 ; 
Yamashiro-ya Hotel, 291. 

Torii, 8, 149, 203, 204, 205, 406. 

Tourists' Bureau, 181. 

Trade, 149. 

Trams, 143, 208, 223. 352, 357. 

Treatment of foreigners, 134. 

Trolley-cars, 7, 143, 208, 352, 357. 



Tsuruga, 296, 298. 
Tunnel slums, 335. 
Twenty-one Demands, 405, 406. 

U 

Ujimasu, Baron, 426. 
Umbrellas, 98. 
Umewaka Minoni, 417. 
United States, 435. 
Universities, 372, 380, 389. 
Unreliability, 132. 



Vagrants, 410. 
Vaudeville, Japanese, 123. 
Venders, 103. 
Vladivostok, 296. 

W 

Wages, 23, 56, 354, 355, 356, 358, 

362, 363. 
Waitresses, 56. 
Washington, George, 384. 
Westernization, 423! 
Whisky, 263. 

White man, the coming of, 65. 
Wilson, President, 407. 
Woman, 426, 427; status of, 135. 
Women, 89, 91, 103, 104-105, 299, 

343, 373, 381, 419, 425, 432, 433, 

443, 448; in art, 272; treatment 

of, in public, 124. 
Working-hours, 23, 
Workmen, 87; attitude toward 

managers and bosses, 137. 
Wrestling, 118. 



Xavier, Francis, 452. 

Y 

Yama, 282. 

Yamada Ise, 220, 301, 385, 386, 
449. 

Yamaguchi, 14, 205. 

Yamamoto, Minister of Agricul- 
ture, 375. 

Yamato, 234, 322, 445; hills of, 
32, 256. 



^'^y241948 



INDEX 461 

Yodogawa River, 209. Young, Robert, 436, 437. 

Yodogimi, 280. Yuaikai (labor union), 360, 363, 

Yokohama, street conditions in, 373, 375, 376. 

210. 
Yomiuri (newspaper), 406. 

Yoritomo, 297, 440, 443. Z 

Yoshitsune, 297, 440, 443. Zen sect, 275. 



THE END 



XK 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



n 028 096 011 1 



